With farmers and ranchers currently in crisis from 6 straight years of depressed commodity markets there is more focus on reclaiming independence from the industry’s heavy-handed push for extreme vertical integration of the food system. Despite the intense pressures facing our agricultural producers, regenerative agriculture is offering a hopeful future for both food producers, and the surrounding rural communities.
This is because regenerative farmers and ranchers are now being looked at as the hope, solution, and future to drawing down quickly accelerating greenhouse gases, and also for cleansing increasingly degraded water resources. The link between healthy soils and economic opportunity has been drawn out more clearly than ever, and it has become more widely understood that the key to success is healthy soil.
This bodes well for the surrounding rural communities too, as these communities will see increased opportunities for rural entrepreneurial opportunities around a more localized farming and food system. As environmental and economic pressures continue to burden farmers there is now a bright future for regenerative farmers and ranchers, and their rural communities.
Current RegeNErate Nebraska efforts include helping farmers and ranchers access more ecosystem services and incentives for increasing soil health-based practices that are scientifically proven to reduce greenhouse gases, educating farmers and ranchers about hot to transition to regenerative with minimal risk, and working with communities to retrofit them to be more independent and resilient communities built to last for the long term.
