Founder of Abundant Harvest Organics, Vernon Peterson shared his thoughts on regenerative agriculture at the Organic Grower Summit in Salinas. Peterson participated in a panel discussion titled ‘Regenerative – What Does it Mean for Organic?’ Several panelists spoke about the role that organic production practices play in the overall framework of what is considered to be regenerative. One of the questions that was posed to the panel was “can you be regenerative and not be organic?”
“My response was, no, that would be impossible. There’s no way you’re building soil organic matter. There’s no way you’re stimulating biology in the soil in a chemical system,” Peterson explained. “So regenerative is something that must be built on top of an organic system. Regenerative has to be built within a biological system, not within a chemical system.”
Peterson grows a variety of fruits in Kingsburg, including apricots, nectarines, peaches, plums, as well as some citrus. All of the stone fruit varieties are regeneratively certified, with the farm itself being Regenerative Organic Certified at the gold level. Peterson heralded a sentiment that other panelists noted, that getting a certification just for the sake of being certified ultimately will not be workable.
“I don’t think you’re going to be very sustainable if your purpose is to get a certification. We see that with organic. So, ‘okay, I’m going to be organic. I used to solve my problem with this, what’s the organic equivalent?’ The wheels come off of that somewhere in the first year,” said Peterson. “There’s got to be a mental shift of proactivity versus reactivity…The same is true with regenerative.”
There are also several social components Peterson said need to be considered. Through bilingual training sessions and instituting a structure for workers to provide feedback, Peterson said it helps to build a better company overall. “We’ve also got to regenerate the farm community, the farm workers, so they have a living wage component. And so that’s a second way we’re addressing the social standpoint,” Peterson explained.
Brian German
Ag News Director / AgNet West