You may have heard the statistic: we must figure out how to feed the world by 2050, when the global population is estimated to reach over nine billion. It’s not incorrect … but as a problem statement, it has its limitations.

The laser focus on productivity drives the narrative that large-scale industrial agricultural systems are the only way to feed people efficiently and at scale. Historically, it has been used by agribusiness to rationalize land conversion and the use of toxic pesticides and fertilizers. It doesn’t take into account the estimated one-third of food produced that is wasted, or the estimated three quarters of agricultural land and 36% of crop calories that are going not to feed us, but to feed livestock that we in turn consume. And it doesn’t address the issue of how we nourish, not just feed, people.

“Food has a culture. It has history. It has stories, it has relationships, that tie us to our food. Food is more than something you just buy at the store.”

WINONA LADUKE (Anishinaabe), FOUNDER, HONOR THE EARTH

This is not to suggest that we don’t need further technical advances in agriculture. Farmers and ranchers have always adapted and innovated, and today, precision ag techniques and technologies are spurring big advancements in soil and water management, weed and disease detection, efficient equipment operation, and other areas that improve productivity and efficiency while stewarding precious resources. One particularly eye-popping statistic in our water-starved state: farm production generated 38% more gross state product in 2015 than in 1980, even though farm water use was about 14% lower.

What it does mean is that productivity can not be the sole measure of the value of food. There are solutions that are replicable or scaleable, and that take into account the health of people and the planet. Two we’ve chosen to focus on are regenerative agriculture and alternative proteins: complementary approaches that can support a shift towards sustainable, diversified food production that underpins nutritious, whole-food diets.

Spend a bit of time in the food systems world and you quickly realize that a definition of regenerative agriculture, or regenerative ag, is hard to pin down. Indeed, the Regenerative Agriculture Foundation states that: “Regenerative Agriculture is not a well-delineated set of practices, a certified type of farming, or solely based on a series of metrics …. It is better thought of as steps toward solving multiple crises."

Regenerative practices vary across different agricultural communities, soil and climate zones, but they share a common goal: to enhance the functioning of the ecological, economic, and social systems on which they rely. Among regenerative ag's benefits: 

Improving soil health is a cornerstone of regenerative ag. Part of the reason is intuitive: healthy soil is fundamental to healthy food production. Equally compelling is the fact that healthy soil stocks can play an important role in mitigating climate change by storing carbon and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere. This is particularly important as soils managed for agricultural purposes have lost as much as 50-70% of the carbon they once held.

While use of the term “regenerative ag” has exploded in recent years, the concept is grounded in indigenous practices that go back millenia. An approach to regenerative ag that prioritizes indigenous farmers and ranchers, other farmers of color, and immigrant farmers is fundamental: not only because indigenous food systems are repositories of knowledge, and not only to redress centuries of policies, laws and violence that dispossessed BIPOC farmers and left their contributions unacknowledged, but because there is no authentic movement for food systems transformation without them.

Battery Powered grantees Point Blue Conservation Science and Zero Foodprint are piloting a model for funding and incentivizing the transition to regernative agriculture. Photo credit: Emma K. Morris.

Despite the evidence on the performance and scaling potential of regenerative ag, farmers and ranchers in the U.S. face many barriers to adopting these approaches: barriers of land access (discussed later in this brief), knowledge, and financial capital. Likewise, there are systems-level barriers to scaling or widespread replication, including lack of supportive federal and state policies and lack of public funding. Within the multitude of strategic pathways and opportunities to support the path to a regenerative transition, Battery Powered will especially look to:

Advocacy. The single most influential package on U.S. agriculture is the federal Farm Bill: an $867 billion (2018) package of legislation, passed roughly every five years, that covers an array of agricultural and food programs, from subsidies to farm credits, sustainable farming practices to healthy food access for low-income families. The 2023 Farm Bill is taking shape, and as it stands, the bill offers only about 1% towards regenerative agriculture, while subsidies disportionately support a few commodity crops produced by large, monoculture farms. Many organizations and coalitions are trying to change that.

Infusing supportive policy ideas into the Farm Bill, and into federal decision making in general, is a significant lever of food systems change in the U.S., not only for regenerative agriculture, but across all of our pillars and focus areas. Given current political realities, however, we can't rely on the next Farm Bill for transformation. Advocacy at the state and local levels, where the rubber hits the road on many food and agricultural policies, is critical, as is organizing and power-building among producers and communities most harmed by industrial, extractive agriculture.

Technical assistance and business advising. Many farmers and ranchers, especially small, mid-sized and historically disenfranchised producers, do not have the resources or time to learn about, implement, and monitor regenerative practices on their own, or to access (still modest) government incentive grants for climate-smart practices. Likewise, these farmers and ranchers are expected to manage complex businesses in a risky, ever-changing environment. Technical assistance and business advising can help producers successfully transition towards regenerative practices while meeting their business goals.

Financial tools. Regenerative practices often require upfront costs that many small- and mid-sized farmers and ranchers, even if motivated, cannot cover out of pocket in their notoriously low-margin business environment. Accessing financing from traditional lenders is a big challenge for producers who might need a smaller loan or have little credit—often immigrants, women, and farmers of color. Mission-driven community development financial institutions (CDFIs), nonprofit farm funds, and other entities are creating loan products and financing mechanisms to accelerate the adoption of regenerative ag.

Communications. The corporate food and ag industry spends billions of dollars to influence our understanding of food and farming. Meanwhile, strategic communications focused on regenerative ag is a significant funding gap. By lifting up the voices and stories of farmers, ranchers, and other experts, we can generate interest and action from stakeholders across the spectrum, from producers to policymakers, brands to consumers.

Global meat consumption has grown steadily in the past 50 years—and global meat production has kept up the pace, quadrupling between 1961 and 2018. Demand for animal protein could as much as double by 2050. This growing demand for meat and other animal proteins (fish, eggs and milk) drives a raft of industrial animal practices that are disastrous for the environment, local economies and livelihoods, and animal welfare.

Direct and indirect emissions from livestock, for example, are responsible for 14.5%-20% of greenhouse gas emissions. Animal protein production is the single largest human-made driver of deforestation, and fuels factory farms and fisheries where animal welfare is not necessarily a priority. The antibiotics that are widely used in intensive animal agriculture are leading to more drug-resistant germs and accelerating zoonotic (animal to human) diseases. Furthermore, meat production is inefficient: meat and dairy provides just 18% of calories consumed by humans but takes up around 77% of global farmland.

Source: World Resources Institute 

We need a more sustainable protein pathway. Encouraging people to reduce meat consumption is one element – one that Battery Powered’s past grantee, WildAid, is tackling with its Sustainable Diets Campaign in China. So is improving animal farming practices. Another solution with potential for scale is alternative proteins: plant-based, cultivated, and fermented proteins that can be produced with fewer GHG emissions, on less land, with less water, and more efficiently than conventional meat. 

The Good Food Institute (GFI, a nonprofit organization working to accelerate alternative protein innovation​), for example, has put out analyses showing that compared to traditional production, plant-based meat production uses 72-99% less water, 47-99% less land, causes 51-91% less water pollution and emits 30-90% less greenhouse gas emissions. Other analyses make more modest claims—and research and analysis relating to these novel food solutions is still developing—but they too demonstrate that plant-based foods are generally less resource-intensive and environmentally impactful to produce than animal-based foods. Furthermore, alternative proteins eliminate meat’s contribution to antibiotic resistance and pandemic risk and do not contribute to mistreatment of animals raised for food.

A concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO, aka factory farm). Photo credit: Center for Food Safety

GFI analogizes alternative proteins to renewable energy and electric vehicles. Just as the goal with renewable energy and electric vehicles is to make them interchangeable with conventional energy and combustion-powered vehicles, plant-based and cultivated meat focused on winning in the marketplace by producing products that taste the same or better to consumers and that cost the same or less, thus requiring no intentional behavior change.

Alternative proteins are not a silver bullet. A diet based on whole plant foods is still the winner if you take a broad view of sustainability that includes emissions, environmental impact, animal welfare, and animal-borne disease risk mitigation. And significant questions remain about who will profit from the growth of alternative proteins, and whether the industry will exacerbate the problems of our current industrial food systems: the use of monoculture, input intensive crops; the dominance of just a few companies; and the proliferation of ultra-processed foods among them. But given the upward trajectory of meat consumption, it seems clear that alternative proteins will fill a critical role in appealing to an ever-growing population of meat eaters.

While much of the play in alternative proteins is in the investment space, philanthropy can accelerate progress—and encourage fair markets and service to the public good—through:

Research & Development: Advancing open-access research into alternative proteins, building global scientific communities, and cultivating talent. This is an area where true cost accounting can help inform a holistic assessment of trade-offs and impacts (positive and negative).

Advocacy for supportive federal policies, and efforts to ensure that the alternative proteins of the future are nutritious, accessible, and affordable to all.