Rooted in Soil: What Regenerative Organic Grazing Actually Looks Like

“Regenerative” has become one of the most used, and least defined, terms in agriculture. This session gets specific. Rooted in Rodale Institute’s foundational framework: Healthy Soil = Healthy Food = Healthy People. We’ll unpack what Regenerative Organic grazing requires, what it looks like on working ranches, and how producers measure their outcomes. Two ranchers join us on stage: one who practices Savory Holistic Planned Grazing, and one who has pursued Regenerative Organic Certification. Together, they’ll walk through the decisions, investments, and tradeoffs behind their approaches, and the tools and metrics they use to know if it’s working through a panel discussion with two ranchers — one practicing Savory Holistic Planned Grazing, one Regenerative Organic Certified.

The conversation will cover:
– What does “regenerating the soil” mean in practice on a grazing operation, and how do you
measure it?
– How do Holistic Planned Grazing and the Regenerative Organic Certified standard overlap, and
where do they differ?
– What does the ROC livestock standard require beyond standard organic certification?
– What has improved on these ranches – soil organic maƩer, water retention, forage diversity –
and how long did it take?
– For ranchers curious about ROC: what does the path to certification look like?
This session is for ranchers who want to go deeper than the buzzword – and understand the soil science
and management decisions behind the label.

Questions? Contact cate.baril@rodaleinstitute.org.