Regenerative Agriculture

During my first years at Minnesota State University, Mankato, I spent time meeting farmers, listening, and reading about soil health and regenerative agriculture. I identified in the peer-reviewed literature that agricultural practices intended to improve soil were not consistently demonstrating positive carbon or climate impacts, and that outcomes varied widely. I became curious about what factors might explain these discrepancies and began working directly with farmers to better understand the systems behind the data. I observed that scientific approaches often isolate single variables, while farmers described the need for multiple practices working together to produce meaningful change.

I have come to define regenerative agriculture as a set of practices and outcomes that simultaneously improve ecological, financial, and social conditions for farmers. My research focuses on working with farmers who are actively engaged in regenerative systems to answer questions about soil and water within real-world contexts. I believe that regenerative agriculture has the capacity to improve soil health, water quality, climate outcomes, and farmer well-being, and that transforming agriculture will require systems thinking, collaboration, and a willingness to move beyond reductionist approaches.

My work in regenerative poultry has focused on documenting the impacts of a fully integrated, climate-smart agricultural system designed to address interconnected ecological, economic, and social challenges. This system centers on the Tree-Range® poultry production model, which mimics chickens’ natural jungle-like habitat through a diverse, perennial, multi-level canopy that includes crops such as hazelnuts and elderberries alongside continuous ground cover. Chickens forage during the day in rotating paddocks and are integrated into a system where each component supports the others—manure fertilizes crops, crops provide habitat and feed, and the system functions as a mutually supportive ecosystem. This approach builds soil organic matter, enhances biodiversity, improves water storage and nutrient cycling, and reduces external inputs and emissions, while also creating a productive and profitable system for farmers.

As part of a multi-institution, interdisciplinary team, my role has been to measure and quantify the physical, chemical, and biological changes in soil and water as farms transition from conventional row-crop agriculture into this regenerative poultry system. We have coordinated on-farm sampling, assessed soil health, hydrology, and greenhouse gas exchange, and worked to identify reliable and cost-effective methods to document change and communicate results to farmers, policymakers, and stakeholders. This work is grounded in collaboration with farmers and is driven by the goal of establishing a scalable, equitable model for climate-smart agriculture—one that is accessible to small, immigrant, and historically underserved producers, and that is informed by Indigenous knowledge and real-world farming systems.