What evidence exists on the impacts of regenerative agriculture practices on greenhouse gas emissions and agricultural yield in temperate farming systems?: A Systematic Map Protocol

Francksen, Richard ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1180-726X , Eze, Samuel, Fraser, Fiona, Hodbod, Jennifer, Rempelos, Leonidas, Yao, Payton and Randall, Nicola (2024) What evidence exists on the impacts of regenerative agriculture practices on greenhouse gas emissions and agricultural yield in temperate farming systems?: A Systematic Map Protocol. PROCEED Evidence, 24 (00268).

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Abstract

Balancing food production and reaching net-zero in agricultural systems is a major societal challenge. Regenerative agriculture (RA) is an approach to farming that focuses (with varying emphasis) on topsoil protection and regeneration, biodiversity recovery, and enhancement of ecosystem services. RA aims to sustainably produce food, increase farm resilience and contribute to the overall health of the environment, and may hold potential to aid progress towards net-zero. Researchers are increasingly interested in RA practices, yet evidence is disparate, difficult to access for non-academics and has not been clearly summarised, creating uncertainty and risk among farmers. Furthermore, measuring the contribution of RA to reaching net-zero is hampered by a lack of readily available, transparent and collated evidence of impacts. Specifically, there is a lack of collated information on how RA can: (i) reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, thus aiding in reaching net-zero targets; and (ii) affect agricultural yields, which is vital for farm businesses. Here we ask how five practices, representative of regenerative agriculture, affect greenhouse gas emissions and agricultural yield in temperate farming systems. We drew upon the regenerative agriculture philosophy outlined by, among others, the Royal Agricultural Society of England (see: https://www.rase.org.uk/news/the-principles-of-regenerative-agriculture/). This philosophy outlines five principles of regenerative agriculture (minimise soil disturbance; keep soil covered; maintain living roots in the soil; maximise plant diversity; reintroduce livestock). These five principles formed our starting point. To each of these we matched what we deemed to be a representative farming practice, as follows: Minimise soil disturbance - Adopt minimum or zero tillage Keep soil covered - Utilise cover crops Maintain living roots in the soil - Incorporate under-sowing Maximise plant diversity - Incorporate intercropping Reintroduce livestock - (Re-) Integrate livestock Here, we aim to map the evidence for these five representative practices on greenhouse gas emissions and agricultural yield.

Item Type:	Article
Journal / Publication Title:	PROCEED Evidence
Publisher:	Collaboration for Environmental Evidence
Departments:	Institute of Science and Environment > STEM
Additional Information:	Richard M. Francksen, Senior Lecturer and Programme Leader for BSc. (Hons.) Zoology, University of Cumbria, UK. This is an Open Access document distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en. PROCEED-24-00268.
Depositing User:	Richard Francksen
Date Deposited:	27 Jun 2025 09:09
Last Modified:	28 Jun 2025 08:30
URI:	https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/8938

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