Precision agriculture is a data-driven farm management approach that uses technology like GPS, sensors, drones, and Artificial Intelligence to collect and analyze detailed information on crops, soil, and environmental conditions in real time.

These tools can help farmers account for variability within fields, track and analyze soil quality, crop health, pest infestations, and temperature levels, and apply inputs like water, fertilizers, and pesticides with greater precision. The aim is to improve resource efficiency, productivity, and profitability while reducing waste and optimizing decision-making.

Precision agriculture tools can be used separately or combined into integrated data-driven platforms. GPS-guided tractor systems seek to improve field accuracy by minimizing overlaps or gaps in herbicide or fertilizer application. And yield monitoring technologies collect and map GPS and farm equipment data to guide decisions about when to sow, fertilize, or harvest.

Drones and remote sensors capture high-resolution imagery to assess crop health and detect variability. Variable rate technology uses this data to adjust the application of inputs like fertilizers and pesticides in real time.

As investment accelerates, the digital farming sector has grown into a multi-billion-dollar industry, valued between US$10 billion and US$30 billion  in 2025 with projections of doubling in the next decade.

Precision agriculture shows potential by enabling farmers to make timely, data-driven decisions tailored to conditions on their land. Precision tools can improve resource efficiency, support more precise decision-making, and facilitate adaptability, which researchers associate with lower fuel, labor, and maintenance costs. These capabilities may contribute to improved outcomes for soils, crops, livestock, and overall farm performance.

But many farmers cannot access precision agriculture technologies because high costs, infrastructure demands, and technical requirements create significant barriers. Farmers must navigate substantial upfront investments, limited training opportunities, and a reliance on consistent internet and electricity, which makes adoption especially difficult for small-scale producers and those in lower-income regions.

Most smallholder farms, which account for about 85 percent of farms globally, continue to operate without these tools, while adoption remains concentrated among larger, capital-intensive operations. Authors of a recent HEAL report warn that these disparities may further exacerbate deeply rooted racial and economic inequities in agriculture.

A report from the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES) links this dynamic to a broader shift toward farm consolidation, as alliances between major agribusiness and technology firms expand control over data, inputs, and decision-making across the food system. “They are shaping what technologies are developed, how food production decisions are made, and what the future of farming looks like,” IPES says.

In parallel, research evaluating environmental outcomes has found limited and inconsistent evidence that precision agriculture reduces inputs or emissions in practice. And there questions about whether the approach could deliver meaningful sustainability gains if it were more equitably accessible.

The wide-spread adoption of precision agriculture is a conflation between efficiency and sustainability, Celize Christy, Member Organizing Lead at HEAL Food Alliance, tells Food Tank. According to HEAL, the production and use of precision agriculture technologies relies heavily on internet-connected devices and energy-intensive operations which generate substantial global emissions.

While innovation is central to improving agricultural efficiency and sustainability, its benefits depend on how it is developed, governed, and deployed, experts caution.

IPES calls for “reclaiming innovation for people and planet,” emphasizing the need to strengthen public oversight, limit the concentration of power among major technology and agribusiness firms, and reshape dominant narratives about what constitutes innovation. HEAL Food Alliance suggests focusing on regenerative practices that regenerate soil, strengthen rural economies, and prioritize equity.

“Climate solutions should serve communities,” Christy tells Food Tank. “Not corporations.”

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Food and agriculture systems generate a variety of environmental, health, social, and economic impacts that are not generally reflected in the prices consumers pay for food, referred to as externalities in economics. True Cost Accounting (TCA) is an evolving, holistic framework for measuring and valuing the positive and negative externalities of the food system.

TCA seeks to make the impacts of food production, processing, distribution, and consumption more visible to support improved decision making by policymakers, farmers, and consumers and reduce the true costs of food. Drawing from the four-capitals framework of the TEEBAgriFood Evaluation Framework, TCA assesses four key capitals: natural, human, social, and produced.

The agrifood system generates myriad positive and negative externalities, says Salman Hussain, Coordinator The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for Agriculture and Food initiative (TEEBAgriFood).

Common examples of positive externalities include a beekeeper incidentally providing a benefit to neighboring farmers when their bees pollinate the farmers’ crops and community cohesion. Examples of negative externalities include emissions from use of fuel in farm machinery, water pollution from fertilizer runoff, and healthcare costs for workers in unsafe conditions.

Though invisible in market prices, the costs of externalities across agrifood systems are nonetheless borne—just rarely by those who create them. Instead, they are passed on to the environment, workers, consumers, and society more broadly.

Environmental costs show up in the 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions that agriculture produces, soil degradation, and biodiversity loss. Workers in food and farming systems face risks like pesticide exposure and heat-related illness and death.

Consumers bear rising rates of diet-related diseases and issues that are linked to modern food environments. 2.5 billion adults suffer diet-related illnesses, 733 million people live in hunger, and 2.8 billion people are unable to afford a healthy diet. And these burdens are often disproportionately carried by vulnerable populations who face higher exposure to environmental risks, poor health outcomes, and economic instability.

The hidden environmental, health, and social costs of global agrifood systems amount to roughly US$12 trillion each year, according to a U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report that Lauren Baker, the Deputy Director of the Global Alliance for the Future of Food, calls a “startling call to action.” A Rockefeller Foundation study attributes US$1.1 trillion unaccounted-for costs to human health, US$900 billion to environmental and biodiversity damage, and US$100 billion in unaccounted livelihoods.

TCA evaluates four forms of capital—natural, human, social, and produced—reflecting the environmental, health, social, and economic dimensions of agrifood systems. The eco-agri-food system is like a puzzle, Alexander Müller, Study Leader for TEEBAgriFood, tells Food Tank. One only understands the full picture when all the pieces are considered together unclear.

TEEBAgriFood established the four-capital framework in 2018 with contributions from more than 150 researchers and experts across 30 countries. It now underpins most True Cost Accounting assessments used today.

Natural capital refers to the stock of physical and biological resources and ecosystem functions that sustain life and enable food production. In agriculture, this includes land, water, soil, biodiversity, and atmospheric systems.

Social capital captures the networks, institutions, and shared norms that enable cooperation and collective action within societies. This can include labor conditions, fair wages, worker protections, community well-being, and the broader social impacts of food production, such as rural livelihoods, job creation or loss, and community stability.

Human capital refers to individuals’ knowledge, skills, health, and capabilities. This includes farmers’ expertise, agricultural training and education, food system innovation, and the health outcomes associated with both food production and consumption.

Produced capital includes the manufactured and financial assets that support economic activity. This encompasses physical infrastructure such as buildings, machinery, and irrigation systems, as well as financial and intellectual capital that enable food production, processing, distribution, and retail.

The goal of TCA is not to increase retail prices, according to Adrian de Groot Ruiz, Co-Founder of True Price, a Dutch social enterprise that helps identify and measure products’ social and environmental costs. Rather, TCA seeks to reveal information that can ultimately help improve the way food is made and reduce the true costs of food, De Groot Ruiz tells Food Tank.

When externalities go unmeasured, they remain unaccounted for in policy decisions, private purchases and markets fail to prevent or address them. Failing to put a value or price negative impacts “creates a dishonest pricing scheme and perpetuates farming systems which destroy our planet and cause a catastrophic impact on public health,” says Patrick Holden, Founder and CEO of SFT.

By identifying and valuing externalities, TCA can help governments, businesses, and investors design policies, legislation, incentives, and investments that reduce harmful impacts, reward practices that generate public benefits, and support food systems in which nutritious food is accessible, workers are compensated fairly, and consumers can make informed choices.

As detailed in FAO’s reports, The State of Food and Agriculture 2023 and 2024, identifying and assessing all hidden costs across agrifood systems is resource- and data-intensive, requiring collaboration between political, economic and social actors and prioritization of the most decision-relevant impacts.

To be effective, TCA must be incorporated into national and international policy frameworks, accounting standards, and performance evaluation systems, supported by standardized metrics that allow impacts to be measured consistently across food value chains, according to government bodies and industry experts.

Some organizations and researchers advocate for policies under which governments tax activities that impose environmental or social harm so market prices reflect their full costs, alongside subsidies or incentives for practices that generate positive externalities such as improved soil health or ecosystem protection. Ultimately, according to Nature Food, TCA calls for a fundamental change to the valuation of food.

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Carbon farming refers to agricultural practices designed to remove carbon from the atmosphere and store it in soils and plants. By increasing carbon sequestration, carbon farming aims to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions while improving soil health and adaptability.

Human activities have increased GHG emissions—particularly carbon dioxide, the primary GHG emitted through human activity—intensifying the greenhouse effect and raising global temperatures.

Agriculture and land-use change are major drivers, and global food systems are responsible for about one-third of annual GHG emissions.

One of the agrifood system’s largest contributions to carbon emissions is soil organic carbon (SOC) loss. Soils have a tremendous capacity to store carbon and can function as either carbon sinks or carbon sources. “If soil is a bank account, soil organic carbon is the currency,” Rattan Lal, Distinguished University Professor of Soil Science at the Ohio State University and a Goodwill Ambassador for the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture, tells Food Tank.

But modern agricultural practices have caused soils to emit more carbon than they retain. Soil organic carbon levels hover between 0.05 percent and 0.10 percent, well under the roughly 2 percent threshold that Lal identifies as necessary to sustain healthy, productive soils.

Converting forests or grasslands to farmland, and practices like over tillage, monocropping, heavy machinery use, overgrazing, and removing crop residues disturb soil structure, expose SOC to water and oxygen, and lead to SOC loss. Lower SOC levels weaken soil structure and diminish microbial activity and biodiversity.

Over the past 12,000 years and particularly in the last two centuries, agriculture has released about 133 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide from soils, and in some areas, soils have lost up to 70 percent of their original SOC. Soils emit around ten times more carbon dioxide than fossil fuels.

Because of their capacity to store carbon, soils also have significant potential to help mitigate climate change. Research suggests that improved land management could enable croplands to sequester up to 1.85 gigatons of carbon per year, roughly equivalent to the annual emissions of the global transportation sector.

And soils in good condition could capture a meaningful share of the emissions reductions needed to keep global warming below 2°C. What we have taken from the land, Rattan Lal says, we can put back.

By increasing soil carbon storage and reducing the release of carbon into the atmosphere, carbon farming aims to shift soils from carbon sources to carbon solutions.

Carbon farmers earn credits for sequestering carbon, with each credit representing a measurable reduction or removal of GHGs. Carbon credits can be sold in carbon markets to companies or other buyers seeking to offset their emissions and meet climate goals. Companies like Grassroots Carbon are helping operationalize this model, recently delivering 1.9 million tons of verified carbon removals. Ranchers participating in these programs report generating meaningful new income streams and reducing operational costs while also improving soil health.

One common carbon farming approach involves adding organic materials to the soil, such as compost or biochar, increasing soil organic matter which in turn increases soils’ carbon storage capacity.

Planting perennial crops, which remain in the ground year after year, can also help store carbon. Their deeper and longer-lasting root systems allow more carbon to accumulate in the soil compared with annual crops that are replanted each season.

Another widely used practice is cover cropping. Farmers plant crops during periods when, or in areas where, fields would otherwise remain bare. These plants not only protect soils from water and air erosion, but they also capture carbon dioxide and transfer some of that carbon into the soil through their roots and plant residue. Cover crops add additional organic matter to soils when they decompose.

Other carbon farming strategies focus on minimizing the carbon that is released into the atmosphere by reducing soil disturbance, particularly through practices that minimize plowing or tilling.

In addition to mitigating GHG emissions, practices that increase or maintain SOC levels enhance soil structure, fuel microbial activity, and improve fertility. By improving overall soil health, these practices can increase agricultural yields while reducing the need for agricultural inputs.

And carbon-rich soils are generally more resilient to environmental pressures. Higher levels of soil organic carbon improve water holding capacity and infiltration, helping farmland better withstand both drought and flooding. “If your neighbor’s land has twice as much carbon as yours, their land will sequester twice the amount of water as your land,” Peter Byck, Arizona State University Professor and Director, Producer, and Writer of Carbon Nation, tells Food Tank.

They also support more active microbial communities, boosting biomass by 40 to 70 percent, and stronger soil structure, enabling soils to absorb shocks and sustain productivity under stress.

Despite its potential to reduce emissions and nourish soils, carbon farming remains the subject of ongoing debate among scientists and policymakers. There is currently no universally accepted system for measuring, reporting, and verifying soil carbon credits, creating confusion for farmers entering carbon markets.

And significant uncertainty remains about how much carbon agricultural soils can store and how accurately sequestration can be measured. Because soil carbon levels can change quickly in response to management practices or weather, stored carbon may also be released back into the atmosphere, complicating efforts to treat soil carbon as a long-term or permanent climate solution.

Concerns about carbon farming also include rebound effects: if certain practices reduce yields, farmland expansion elsewhere could generate emissions that offset the original climate gains. Evidence also shows that widely used no-till systems often rely on herbicides for weed control, accounting for roughly one-third of U.S. pesticide use in corn and soy production.

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Food sovereignty is the right of peoples, communities, and countries to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through socially just, ecologically sound, and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own policies, strategies, and systems for food production, distribution, and consumption.

While food security names the destination, food sovereignty defines a democratic path to reach it. According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), food security is a condition in which everyone has reliable access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food.

Food sovereignty accepts that objective but shifts the focus to power and governance, arguing that achieving lasting food security requires placing decision-making in the hands of the people who produce, distribute, and consume food, rather than markets or dominant governments.

Food sovereignty emerged in the 1980s and 1990s as a response and challenge to the social, economic, and environmental consequences of globalization and industrialized agriculture. 44 percent of the world’s population was living in extreme poverty in 1981, and the number of hungry people grew by 15 million between 1970 and 1980, even as surplus food flooded global markets.

Mechanization of agricultural tasks like sowing seeds, harvesting crops, milking cows greatly reduced and sometimes eliminated the need for human and animal labor, leaving many without jobs. The share of the U.S. workforce employed in agriculture fell from 41 percent in 1900 to 2 percent by 2000, and between 1950 and 1997 the average farm more than doubled in size while nearly half of farms disappeared.

The 1980s marked a sharp increase in global temperatures and, in 1988, NASA scientist James Hansen told Congress he was “99 percent sure” that global warming was upon us. Indigenous, rural, peasant, and small-scale farming communities were left facing overlapping crises of poverty, environmental degradation, and hunger.

Recognizing urgent necessity for an organized, collective, and internationalist response, La Via Campesina coined the term food sovereignty at the 1996 World Food Summit. A decade later, 700 delegates from five continents gathered at the 2007 International Forum for Food Sovereignty in Nyéléni, Mali to further deepen collective understanding on the topic, developing the six pillars of food sovereignty.

The framework centers food as a human need rather than a commodity, supports sustainable livelihoods for food providers, and localizes food systems and shortens the distance between producers and consumers. It places decision-making power in the hands of local communities, builds on traditional knowledge strengthened by research, and works with nature instead of industrial, energy-intensive models.

During Canada’s subsequent People’s Food Policy process, members of the Indigenous Circle added a seventh pillar, which states that “food is sacred,” asserting that food is a gift of life and must not be reduced to a commodity.

Nearly three decades after La Via Campesina introduced food sovereignty, the hunger, poverty, ecological degradation, and concentrated market power it sought to confront persist. Today’s industrial food system generates record levels of calories, yet nearly one-third of the global population remains food insecure. Food systems contribute up to one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions, and agriculture threatens more than 80 percent of species at risk of extinction.

Corporate consolidation has deepened across the food system, with four firms controlling nearly 70 percent of the global pesticide and seed market. And small-scale and family farmers comprise over 98 percent of farms, but control just 53 percent of agricultural land.

Beyond codifying the right to food and control over food systems, and recognizing the contribution of indigenous peoples, pastoralists, forest dwellers, workers and fishers to the food system, food sovereignty offers a framework to address the harms of industrial agriculture.

By localizing production and prioritizing agroecological methods, food sovereignty can shorten supply chains and reduce emissions while restoring soil health and biodiversity. Research also finds that food sovereignty–based approaches, such as strengthening school food systems, improving soil fertility, advancing gender equity, and confronting structural racism, can support long-term health equity.

Scaling food sovereignty requires structural reforms that confront concentrated power and expand equitable access to land. IPES emphasizes the need to democratize governance and counter corporate control of the food system through stronger conflict-of-interest safeguards, revitalized antitrust enforcement to reduce market concentration, and stricter transparency and lobbying rules.

Others like the National Young Farmers Coalition call for eliminating inequities in land ownership, protecting farmland, securing affordable land tenure, and supporting farm viability and transition.

“If people don’t control the food, they don’t control the power,” Morgan Ody, General Coordinator for La Via Campesina, tells Food Tank.

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Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) are products constructed from industrially produced ingredients and substances that are typically not available for home cooking. UPFs are designed to be hyperpalatable, conveniently accessible, and highly profitable, and include a wide range of commonplace items from soft drinks, chips, and packaged bread to jarred sauces, cereals, and ice cream.

Over the past century, traditional dietary patterns centered on minimally processed foods have gradually given way to diets dominated by ultra-processed items. UPFs make up around 75 percent of the U.S. food supply and more than half of the calories consumed by adults in high-income countries. Among children, and households with lower income and education levels, the rates are higher.

The rise of UPFs is displacing unprocessed or minimally processing foods and long-established dietary patterns, driving the rise of multiple diet-related chronic diseases globally.

Food processing has existed throughout human history. Global communities froze foods to prolong storage times, fermented foods with salt to improve nutrition, and preserved foods in honey or sugar to create new tastes and textures. Unlike historically processed foods, ultra-processed products are not simply altered whole ingredients but are manufactured from refined components and additives.

NOVA, the most widely used food classification system, does not define UPFs as food, but as industrial formulations. UPFs are composed primarily of chemically modified and industrially produced ingredients generally unavailable in home kitchens, like protein isolates or concentrates, hydrogenated fat, and modified starches.

They typically contain additives to enhance taste, texture, appearance, and preservatives to extend shelf-lives and undergo processing techniques that leave the final products bearing little resemblance to the original ingredients.

The ingredients and processes used to manufacture ultra-processed foods make them highly convenient and appealing, but often low in nutritional quality and liable to be over-consumed. UPFs are typically high in added sugars, sodium, modified starches, and saturated fat, and low in fiber, micronutrients, and phytochemicals.

UPFs are designed to be exceptionally appealing to the human palate, and their composition can stimulate the brain’s reward system and overrides satiety signals, making it difficult to stop eating. A study published in Cell Metabolism compared the effects of consuming two nutritionally similar diets differing only in their degree of processing. Participants assigned to an ultra-processed diet ate about 500 more calories per day and gained about 2 pounds more than those on the unprocessed diet.

Ultra-processed foods are associated with worse diet quality and a long and growing list of adverse health outcomes. Multiple studies link greater exposure to ultra-processed food with increased risk of cardiovascular disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes, colorectal cancer, and anxiety and depression, demonstrating adverse outcomes across nearly all organ systems.

Food processing is not inherently dangerous, and certain processing methods offer clear benefits. Pasteurization improves food safety and processes like freezing and canning can reduce food waste. Fortified foods, like milk with added vitamin D to aid calcium absorption or cereal enriched with fiber, can improve nutrition and address deficiencies. And some processed foods like whole-grain brain, yogurt, and baked beans are associated with a reduced risk of chronic disease like diabetes and obesity.

Consumers should limit UPFs in their diets, but also understand that there is nuance, says Dr. David Seres, director of medical nutrition and professor of medicine in the Institute of Human Nutrition at Columbia University Medical Center.

Most global policies aimed at reversing the rise of UPFs worldwide have focused on reducing consumption of foods high in added fats, sugar, and sodium, many of which are UPFs. But public health experts have called for stronger and broader policies that provide clear dietary guidance and health objectives, warning labels, and consumer education.

And Marion Nestle, Professor Emerita at New York University, highlights the need for legal authority to regulate television and social media advertising, retail product placements, sales and service in schools, and other promotions directed toward children. UPF marketing, Nestle says, “must be stopped.”

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Food is Medicine (FIM) encompasses a variety of food-based interventions that aim to prevent and treat diet-related chronic conditions and advance health equity. Sitting at the crossroads of food and agriculture systems, nutrition, and healthcare, FIM programs focus on increasing access, availability, and affordability of healthful foods.

Poor diets are a major driver of cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death worldwide, causing 45 percent of cardiometabolic deaths in the United States and 70 percent of new diabetes cases worldwide, according to a JACC State-of-the-Art Review by Dariush Mozaffarian, Director of the Food is Medicine Institute at Tufts University (FIMI). Globally, one in five deaths is attributable to poor diet—more than any other risk factor, including tobacco.

The burden of poor diets falls disproportionately on low-income communities and communities of color, where food insecurity and limited access to nutritious food contribute to higher rates of diet-related chronic disease. Among American Indians and Alaska Natives, food insecurity rates are roughly double those of white Americans in recent decades. Obesity rates are about 7 percent higher among Hispanic Americans and 15 percent higher among Black Americans than among white Americans.

Poor nutrition also carries a significant economic burden, contributing to chronic diseases that account for 90 percent of U.S. health care spending and more than US$1.1 trillion annually in combined medical costs and lost productivity.

FIM interventions span different levels of clinical intensity and support, with programs designed to match patients’ medical conditions and social needs. Produce prescription (PRx) programs, appropriate for the broadest group, provide patients with funds or vouchers to purchase fruits and vegetables from local food retailers, supporting both disease prevention and management.

Medically tailored groceries offer curated food packages selected by a registered dietitian nutritionist or other medical professional to address diet-sensitive conditions. These groceries are designed for patients who can shop and prepare meals.

Medically tailored meals (MTM) represent the highest-intensity intervention and are customized for patients with severe or complex conditions, who are unable to shop or cook and require comprehensive nutritional support. FIM initiatives frequently integrate nutrition and culinary education to reinforce preventive care and maintenance.

Farmers are central to all FIM initiatives and programs. Farmers supply the fruits, vegetables, and other foods used in FIM interventions, and their soil and crop management practices directly shape the quality and nutrient density of the food patients receive. Programs that source locally support farm income, reduce supply chain risks, and create economic benefits in rural communities.

Throughout history, food has been understood as a source of healing across cultures and medical traditions. Indigenous communities have “long known that food is medicine,” says Kate Nelson, an award-winning writer and editor and Alaska Native Tlingit tribal member. Indigenous foodways recognize food as inseparable from health, Nelson explains, with seasonal, regionally specific, and culturally grounded foodways understood as essential to healing both people and land.

In seventh-century China, physician Sun Simiao included food prescriptions in Recipes Worth a Thousand Gold, in the hope that sick people would alter their diet before trying drugs. In the U.S. FIM efforts trace part of their origins to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, when organizations such as God’s Love We Deliver and Project Open Hand emerged to provide nutritional and social support to individuals living with HIV/AIDS. Over time, these programs evolved from providing basic sustenance to offering medically tailored groceries and meals designed to support long-term health outcomes.

Despite its long cultural history, FIM has played a limited role in Western healthcare. Clinicians have had few practical tools to address patients’ diets, compounded by insufficient medical nutrition education and inadequate incentive and policy infrastructure.

In recent years, however, FIM is gaining rapid momentum across the U.S. health care sector, with interventions such as MTM and PRx moving into the mainstream. Public and private organizations have committed nearly US$10 billion to address diet-related disease and hunger, and companies such as Instacart have launched initiatives aligned with FIM strategies.

Early research indicates that FIM interventions are associated with improvements in dietary quality, food security, and health outcomes, along with reductions in health care utilization. A systematic review found that 21 of 22 PRx studies reported increased fruit and vegetable intake, and modeling suggests that national implementation could avert 274,000 cardiovascular events.

According to research conducted by FIMI, MTM have been linked to improved health and fewer hospitalizations, and are estimated to save US$23.7 billion in healthcare costs.

Existing evidence supports the promise of Food Is Medicine and justifies broader implementation, but indicates the need for more rigorous research, stronger clinician training, and sustained funding to scale these interventions equitably.

“Food is the big missing thing in how we approach our health in this country,” says Mozaffarian, expressing hope that eventually food will be prescribed as readily as a drug or surgery.

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Regenerative agriculture is a holistic approach to farming and ranching that prioritizes soil restoration, equity within food systems, and the long-term health of land, water, and climate. Rather than maintaining conditions and resources, regenerative agriculture seeks to improve ecosystem health and strengthen the resilience of agricultural landscapes.

Healthy soils are the foundation of productive food systems, shaping outcomes from farm yields to community well-being and ecological stability. But intensive farming practices that rely on heavy machinery, synthetic fertilizers, and pesticides have contributed to soil degradation across a majority of the world’s agricultural land.

Regenerative agriculture prioritizes restoring soil health and function, supporting crop growth, nutrient cycling, and biodiversity through a range of practices. To rebuild soil health, regenerative farmers reduce or forgo tillage, avoiding the erosion caused by conventional plowing. This approach keeps soil intact, preserving soil structure, protecting fungi, and keeping carbon in the ground.

Planted in soil that would otherwise be bare before or after harvest, cover crops shield soil from wind and water and restore nutrients to the soil. They also keep living roots in the soil, providing natural tillage and mitigating fertilizer runoff.

Growing just one or two crops year after year on the same land can deplete soil nutrients and degrade soil health over time. Diversifying crops improves water and nutrient retention and supports pollinators and wildlife. Crop diversification can also reduce pests and weeds—and reduce the need for artificial fertilizer.

“It turns out it really helps to have some diversity,” Sieg Snapp, Associate Dean for Research for Washington State University’s College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences, tells Food Tank. According to Snapp, diverse crops above ground feed a wider range of soil microbes below ground.

To restore soil nutrients and reduce fertilizer use, some regenerative farmers integrate livestock into cropping systems. Rooted in Indigenous land management traditions, rotational grazing involves moving livestock between pastures, mimicking the way animals historically moved in herds across grasslands. This method allows vegetation to recover while improving soil fertility through manure and organic matter inputs.

Regenerative practices often extend beyond soil health to include broader ecological and social considerations, emphasizing animal welfare and worker well-being. Many regenerative farmers prioritize fair treatment of workers, including freedom of association, safe working conditions, living wages, and participation in farm decision-making.

Some also seek to address the legacy of discriminatory policies that have limited land access and support for Black, Indigenous, and farmers of color, recognizing that regenerative agriculture must confront longstanding inequities within U.S. agriculture.

We need agriculture that “does not deplete our people,” says Leonard Diggs, Director of Farmer & Rancher Opportunities at Pie Ranch, an incubator farm supporting early-stage regenerative farmers and ranchers, focusing on communities who have historically been denied access to land.

Regenerative agriculture can improve profitability and strengthen farm performance while reducing environmental impact. By reducing dependence on fertilizers and pesticides, regenerative farms often lower costs, and research indicates regenerative systems can deliver long-term yield gains and profits up to 120 percent higher than conventional operations.

Soil-focused practices also improve water management during droughts and heavy rains, cut greenhouse gas emissions from machinery and nitrogen inputs, and increase carbon sequestration. Project Drawdown estimates that restored agricultural lands could remove 2.6 to 13.6 gigatons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere annually.

Scaling regenerative agriculture requires reducing the financial risk farmers face during the transition by providing technical support, upfront capital, and reliable markets that offset short-term costs, according to industry experts.

Global organizations like the World Economic Forum and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development contend that actors across the value chain must align on common metrics to measure and reward environmental and socio-economic outcomes, enabling coordinated incentives, investment, and regulatory compliance.

Momentum behind regenerative agriculture is building and spans global coalitions and community-based initiatives. Regenerative Organic Certified (ROC) builds on the USDA Organic standard by adding requirements for soil health, animal welfare, and social fairness within a tiered certification framework, bringing the three pillars of regenerative organic agriculture into a single certification framework.

The Rockefeller Foundation has committed more than US$220 million to its “big bet” for food systems transformation to benefit farmers, feed more children, and improve nutrition and soil. This includes their US$100 million commitment to advance universal locally grown and regenerative school meals in the United States and globally, US$100 million to scale Food is Medicine solutions in the U.S., and over US$20 million for the Periodic Table of Food Initiative, which is providing standardized tools, data, and training to map food quality of the world’s edible biodiversity.

RegenAG has worked with thousands of Australian farmers since 2010 through training and consultancy programs focused on soil carbon, profitability, and lower input costs, while Kiss the Ground advances regenerative agriculture in California through education and demonstration projects, and La Delia Verde applies soil-centered practices in Argentina to restore biodiversity, store carbon, and strengthen regional food systems.

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Agroecology is an approach to agriculture that applies ecological and social principles to the design and management of food systems, from production through consumption. A transdisciplinary concept grounded in the recognition that food, health, natural resources, and economic security are interconnected challenges, agroecology manifests as a science, a set of practices, and a social movement.

As a science, agroecology applies ecological concepts and principles to the design and management of sustainable food systems. This dimension draws on ecology to understand how relationships among plants, animals, soils, and people shape agricultural outcomes across landscapes.

As a set of practices, agroecology seeks to improve agricultural systems by working with natural processes rather than replacing them with external inputs. Agroecological practices emphasize beneficial biological interactions and synergies within agroecosystems, reduce reliance on synthetic and toxic inputs, and make use of ecological processes in farm management.

As a social movement, agroecology aims to transform agriculture by building locally relevant food systems that strengthen the economic viability of rural areas. This dimension emphasizes short supply chains, fair and safe food production, and support for smallholder farmers, rural communities, food sovereignty, cultural identity, and Indigenous rights related to seeds and breeds.

Agroecology emphasizes locally rooted approaches rather than standardized technical solutions, relying on bottom-up, territorial processes that respond to local environmental, social, and economic conditions. These approaches depend on the co-creation of knowledge, combining scientific research with traditional, practical, and local knowledge held by producers and communities.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) identifies horizontal exchanges, like farmer-to-farmer, producer-to-consumer, and intergenerational learning, as core mechanisms for developing and adapting agroecological practices.

The social component and collective action beyond farm-level production are essential to agroecology, particularly in the face of a changing climate, Million Belay, General Coordinator of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa, tells Food Tank. “Cohesiveness is very critical when you’re attacked by a climate crisis,” he says. “You can mobilize together. You can help each other.”

Farms that transitioned to agroecological practices saw an average 11 percent increase in crop yields, and a 49 percent increase in farmer income due to lower input costs, according to a study conducted by the Global Alliance for the Future of Food.

Agroecological practices boosted biodiversity, strengthened social cohesion in communities, and reduced health risks, with farmers reporting 33 percent fewer sick days, says Anna Lappé, Executive Director of the Global Alliance.

Agroecology has expanded conceptually over time from a practice on individual fields and farms to an approach that encompasses entire food systems. The Agroecology Fund traces the approach’s roots to Indigenous Peoples’ food systems and documents its presence in scientific literature since the mid-twentieth century. The concept has since been embraced by governments, international agencies, and U.N. institutions.

FAO developed the Ten Elements of Agroecology framework, outlining essential components and desired enabling conditions that help guide planning, decision-making, and assessment when transitioning to agroecology. The Ten Elements include diversity, co-creation and sharing of knowledge, responsible governance, and circular and solidarity economies.

Alongside this framework, the High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition, a science-policy interface of the U.N. Committee on World Food Security commissioned by FAO, published the Thirteen Principles of Agroecology. While FAO’s Ten Elements guide countries operationalizing agroecology through a holistic, multi-stakeholder approach, the Thirteen Principles are designed to provide more specific, actionable tools for farmers implementing changes on the ground and developing relevant policies. The Thirteen Principles address areas including recycling, input reduction, soil and animal health, social values and diets, and land and natural resource governance.

FAO connects agroecology with a broader global shift toward holistic and systems-based approaches that aim to address climate change, biodiversity loss, and poverty while respecting human rights. The organization links agroecology to progress across multiple Sustainable Development Goals, including those related to hunger, poverty, climate action, biodiversity, gender equality, youth engagement, and human rights.

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Photo courtesy of Rohit Dey, Unsplash

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