Regenerative Agriculture

Regenerative Agriculture is sponsored by Brian & Joannah Lawson Family Foundation. Funds projects promoting regenerative agriculture practices to enhance soil health and biodiversity.

Regenerative Agriculture — Brian & Joannah Lawson Family Foundation Farmers are on the front lines of the growing climate crisis: their solutions are critical, and their leadership needs to be supported.

We focus on funding Regenerative Agriculture practices because they can: Sequester atmospheric carbon back into the soil to mitigate climate change Increase soil fertility to grow healthier foods Improve resilience to drought, floods, pests and weeds Promote biodiversity and improve animal welfare Enhance farmer well-being and prosperity Reduce farmer reliance on artificial fertilizers and pesticides Protect agricultural exports by meeting or exceeding international standards In 2019, we began providing multi-year grants to a collective of keystone organizations in the regenerative agriculture field.

New Farm is in the process of establishing the New Farm Centre , a not-for-profit centre with a mission to mitigate climate change by developing, demonstrating and advocating for a resilient and regenerative farming system. This Centre is farmer-led and science based, collaborating with farm organizations, policy makers, educational institutions, researchers, industry leaders and consumers.

NFC’s Vision : Agricultural greenhouse gas emissions are significantly reduced, farms are resilient to climate change, farmer prosperity and wellbeing is improved, Canadian agricultural exports meet or exceed standards of international markets, Canadian import substitutions of regenerative and organic food products have increased significantly, access to nutrient-dense foods is increased, and biodiversity is increased. 1.

On the Farm: Create a Centre for convening, demonstrating, researching and educating to promote climate-friendly agricultural practices. 2. In the Community: Create a Consulting Practice to promote, educate, and facilitate farms to transition toward climate-friendly practices using awareness, tools, incentives, sharing of best practice, and creating communities of support.

3. Across Canada and beyond: Lead a Policy Institute to work with sector partners (e.g. Farmers for Climate Solutions) to promote systems, tools and incentives while removing systemic barriers/disincentives to farms transitioning toward climate-friendly practices.

Farmers for Climate Solutions Farmers for Climate Solutions is a national farmer and rancher led coalition that advances pragmatic solutions to support farmers and ranchers in making the transition to low emissions, high resilience approaches to agriculture.

We were a lead donor starting in 2020 and understand that our early support helped build momentum to catalyze success in the 2021 federal budget that represented a historic win for Canadian agriculture that FCS will continue to build upon. Canadian Organic Growers (COG) COG guides Canadian farmers in adopting organic regenerative agricultural practices that help mitigate climate change.

They provide essential programs, training, advocacy, and research to support Canadian farmers on climate change's front lines. With our support they increased programming services and resources to help more farmers/producers transition their farms to regenerative/organic.

COG developed a national cover cropping curriculum with the Farmers for Climate Solutions, and they are currently expanding regenerative organic oat production starting in the Prairies, growing their school garden workshops in Ottawa, concluding Canadian supply chain research (six organic commodities), and increasing their policy work at the federal level.

There is COG representation on several key committees and organizations, for example, AAFC (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada) Tables, and the Governance and Farmers Engagement and Policy Working Group of the Farmers for Climate Solutions. Ecological Farmers' Association of Ontario (EFAO) EFAO is a membership organization that focuses on farmer-led education, research and community building.

They bring farmers together to learn from each other and improve the health of their soils, crops, livestock and the environment. 1. Support EFAO members to run profitable, resilient ecological farms; 2.

Broaden adoption of ecological agriculture among other farmers; and 3. Achieve provincial and federal policies that support ecological agriculture.