What is Regenerative Agriculture, and What Does it Look Like in Arizona?

Over the past several years, the topic of Regenerative Agriculture has become more mainstream. At its most fundamental level, regenerative agriculture is working in harmony with, or as, nature. It can be seen as part of a holistic land management approach centered around building and maintaining healthy soils and increasing biodiversity. The strict definition of regenerative agriculture, however, is dependent on the perspective taken and can look different depending on the context and place.

Indigenous Roots of Regenerative Agriculture

For thousands of years, many indigenous agricultural practices developed a symbiotic relationship with their environment through careful observation, years of experimentation, and the sharing of Indigenous Agricultural Knowledge (IAK) from generation to generation. This knowledge is based on regenerative principles and practices and can be seen as the “original” regenerative agriculture.

From an Indigenous perspective, regenerative agriculture is a way of being and thinking, and a way of interacting and learning from ecosystems so that we can regenerate ourselves and other living creatures on Earth. Regenerative agriculture is not only about restoring soils. It is about healing relationships, healing history, and the people still living with and through the trauma that the legacies of colonization have left.

As defined by Dr. Michael Kototuwa Johnson – a Hopi descendant and practitioner of Native American dryland farming– Indigenous Regenerative Agriculture (IRA) is “the process of incorporating place-based ways of knowing supported by culture, belief systems, and environmentally derived survival schemes over millennia.”

Holistic Land Management

Regenerative agriculture as part of a holistic land management practice centers around building and maintaining healthy soil— primarily through practices that improve the soil ecology where biology, chemistry, and physics are coevolving. Healthy soil increases biodiversity, builds crop resiliency, strengthens the water cycle, infiltrates and holds water, and leads to more nutrient-dense food. One teaspoon of healthy soil contains more living organisms than there are people in the world; it is a living universe that feeds the food we eat. Regenerative agriculture practices include:

Careful observation of ecosystems and context
Cover crops and mulch
Crop rotations
Minimizing soil disturbances
Reduced, minimal or no tillage
Reduced or no fertilizer or pesticide use/synthetic inputs
Promoting biodiversity
Managed & adaptive grazing
Livestock integration

Regenerative Agriculture in Arizona

One underlying principle of regenerative agriculture is to know your context. This means understanding what works and what doesn't work under the current conditions of the ecosystem and adapting to them as needed. Arizona’s own context varies between hot, dry desert landscapes to grasslands and forests. Therefore, regenerative agriculture looks quite different throughout the state. Regenerative farm maps, such as this one, can help locate producers identified as those incorporating regenerative ag practices.

A Regenerative Sheep Grazing Collaboration

Oatman Flats Ranch (based in Gila Bend) and Heartquist Hollow Family Farm (based in Winkelman) recently partnered to incorporate livestock on Oatman Flats Ranch, which has a mission “to develop the first Regenerative Organic Certified farming business model for hotter and drier climates.”

Oatman currently grows regenerative organic certified heritage wheat varieties—sold through their food company Oatman Farms and other retailers—and needed to integrate livestock into their regenerative agriculture model. Heartquist Hollow knew their sheep and burros (livestock guardians) were a perfect match.

What began as an experimental herd of 23 sheep has now expanded into 77 sheep because of the significant benefits that were happening on the ranch. By implementing an intensive rotational grazing plan, the sheep are helping to build healthy soil by providing natural fertilizer (manure) and grazing on nutritious cover crops while also eating invasive species, such as Bermuda grass, to mitigate weed pressure. As they continue observing the sheep grazing patterns, behaviors, and cover crop recovery, the partners plan to explore an optimal rotational grazing methodology for better ecosystem health.

Regenerative Ag Operations Across the State

Across the state, other farmers are looking to reduce their environmental impact and are adopting regenerative practices in their day-to-day operations. Here are a few:

Whipstone Farm, located in Paulden, aims to create a farm ecosystem where the soil and biological communities are constantly improving. The farm employs cover cropping, crop rotation, beneficial insects, and crop diversity to transform their farm soil.
The Farm at Bent River is located in Clarkdale and while historically it supported a cow-calf operation with a fruit orchard, it has evolved to support a small herd of Belted Galloways and grows rye grass and teff (a small pseudo grain from Ethiopia) for forage and hay. The farm uses high tunnels, nitrogen fixing cover crops, and silvopasture (raising chickens in their orchard) to accomplish low-till permaculture that builds the soil and decreases greenhouse gasses.
The husband and wife team, Juan Aguiar Bravo & Keeton Aguiar, of Blooming Reed Farm (located in Paulden) are on a mission to grow food and flowers using sustainable practices on a minimal-till farm. Their low-to-no till approach on the farm suppresses weeds and nourishes the ecosystem underneath the roots, which leads to healthier soil.

Uplifting the Voices of Local Regenerative Ag Producers

Regenerate AZ

In September 2022, the annual Tucson-based music festival HOCO Fest featured a Sonoran Desert Sustainability Summit that focused on regenerative agriculture. Regenerate AZ discussed topics that focused on Arizona water issues and showcased several regenerative ag producers: Oatman Flats Ranch, San Xavier Co-op Farm, 47 Ranch, Awareness Ranch, and DRY Cooperative. The summit emphasized how agriculture, when designed around ecosystem health, can provide solutions to many environmental and social issues.

2022 Arizona’s Conservation Districts Conference

During the 2022 annual AACD conference, one of the panel discussions emphasized the role that regenerative agriculture can play in enhancing soil health in Arizona. Speakers from the University of Arizona Soil Health Department of Environmental Science, Indian Nations Conservation Alliance, Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems, and Santa Cruz National Resource Conservation District discussed the importance of improving soil health in order to help Arizona address extended drought conditions, a broken water cycle, and drier conditions.

Regenerate America

Regenerate America (RA) is building nationwide support to advance regenerative agriculture in the 2023 US Farm Bill and beyond. RA is a diverse, bipartisan coalition of producers, businesses, nonprofits, and citizens working together to transform the current food system through public education and the 2023 US Farm Bill.

Yadi Wang, an Arizona farmer, serves on the Farmer Leadership Council and Danielle Corral, the Farmland Preservation Program Manager at Local First Arizona, is part of the Policy Working Group. Representation in the RA lifts the voices of Arizona producers who are at the forefront of helping to design policy recommendations, and also ensures that the hundreds of billions of dollars going into the US Farm Bill incentivize soil health and regenerative practices.