As part of a 16-month regenerative agriculture (RA) project in Embu and Makueni counties in Kenya, IIRR’s role was to drive the learning agenda surrounding RA. Regenerative agriculture refers to those farming and grazing practices that focus on regenerating top-soil, allowing farmers to maintain crop yields, improve water retention and plant uptake, increase farm profitability, and support bio sequestration, among other benefits. One important publication output here was IIRR’s business case for regenerative agriculture. There is already a clear climate, ecological, social, and economic case for more general climate-smart agriculture (CSA) in Africa. CSA refers to an integrated approach to managing landscapes – cropland, livestock, forests and fisheries – that address the interlinked challenges of food security and climate change. Regenerative agriculture is an add-on within CSA. It is therefore important to justify why RA should be undertaken, and evaluate the benefits, costs, and risks, in order to show its effectiveness in dealing with two key problems of climate change and food insecurity.
