America’s enthusiastic embrace of regenerative agriculture will only succeed if policy, investment and regulation shift to reward biological performance, nutritional quality and farmer innovation

“Regenerative” agriculture has quickly emerged as a nearly universally embraced goal. This is generally a good thing — except that attaining the goal means different things to different people.

In her December 2025 announcement of the $700 million NRCS regenerative agriculture program, Secretary of Agriculture Rollins focused on practices and systems known to promote soil health. The repackaged program draws on the cost-share tools and baseline funding of existing USDA conservation programs. It’s a reboot, not a new build.

Food companies are hoping for opportunities to partner with USDA in helping their growers become more regenerative. Multiple sources of investment capital are flowing into farmland in order to make it more “regenerative” and to stabilize the climate. Every year, pesticide-seed-biotech companies are bringing to market dozens of new corn, soybean and cotton varieties engineered to express multiple herbicide-tolerant traits and insect toxins. They believe that more and higher levels of toxins is the “modern ag” way to help farmers become regenerative.