European Study Shows Regenerative Agriculture Strengthens Drought Resilience

Soil Capital has released early findings from analysis of a first-of-its-kind European dataset showing that regenerative farming practices can help to protect crop production during drought. The analysis utilized independently verified, primary data from 1,262 farms across 331,600 hectares in France and considered farming practices, yields, and soil conditions at field level for crops including winter wheat, winter barley, winter rapeseed, spring barley, grain corn, and potato. In the area where the most detailed evaluation was conducted following the droughts of 2023, crop yields fell by 22% on the least regenerative farms but only by 8% on highly regenerative farms. Regenerative practices used on these farms included cover cropping, reduced tillage intensity, residue retention, and organic matter application.