How do we push the regenerative agriculture movement forward when leaders in the movement itself are at odds with what the term even means? It is generally understood that regenerative agriculture is a holistic farming practice that prioritizes soil health, carbon sequestration, biodiversity and water capture. But without one regulated definition, there is a vacuum of opinions and confusion, largely around whether or not ‘regenerative’ should include a foundation of organic, chemical-free farming practices.
J.I. Rodale is largely credited for coining the term ‘organic’ decades ago, and his son, Robert, subsequently coined ‘regenerative organic’ in the 1980s. In 2017, the Rodale Institute helped form the Regenerative Organic Alliance, which grants ROC certification and is widely accepted as the gold standard of regenerative certifications. But in the eight years since, a handful more certifying bodies have emerged, and they’re not all the same. Companies big and small claim they are regenerative simply because they have applied one pillar (that’s greenwashing). In order to obtain ROC certification, a farm or food brand must first obtain USDA Organic certification. But not every certifier believes that organic farming is necessary to be considered regenerative. This is the root of the problem. Earlier this year, California became the first and only U.S. state or federal entity to define regenerative agriculture formally. Scott Faber, SVP for Government Affairs at Environmental Working Group and Food & Law Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University Law Center, tells Observer, “it’s as clear as mud.”
“We built a standard that is going to be aligned with your values if you care about not having chemicals in your diet, that you want to make sure we’re actually regenerating our soil and building back soil health, that you care about how people and economies are treated, and that you care about how animals are treated,” Christopher Gergen, CEO of the Regenerative Organic Alliance, tells Observer. “We’re trying to send a clear signal in the marketplace.”
The California definition applies only to government funding eligibility, not commercial certifications, notes Anthony Corsaro of ReGen Brands. The USDA began regulating organic in 1990 and created the USDA Organic certification in 2002. Observer contacted the USDA to see if it plans to create a federally regulated definition of ‘regenerative agriculture.’ The USDA did not directly comment on the matter. Jeff Tkach, CEO of the Rodale Institute, tells Observer that he wants to see the USDA regulate a definition. But many are doubtful it will ever happen, for both practical and legal reasons.
Elizabeth Candelario of Mad Agriculture, a nonprofit that helps farmers transition from industrial to regenerative organic agriculture, believes regenerative will remain undefined, unlike organic’s regulated trajectory. “Regenerative will always be a generic term in the marketplace,” she tells Observer. Gergen warns this confusion misleads consumers who expect “regenerative” to mean chemical-free, potentially eroding retailer trust.
The responsibility of natural grocery stores
If the USDA is not going to regulate these claims, then responsibility lies more heavily on grocery stores that accept products with these claims on them. Whole Foods Market, owned by Amazon, is the nation’s leading natural grocer and the only certified organic natural grocer. There are four regenerative agriculture certifications that Whole Foods Market accepts into its stores for front-of-package claims: Regenerative Organic Certified, Certified Regenified, Certified Regenerative by A Greener World, and Ecological Outcome Verified by Land to Market (livestock-based). Whole Foods performs an internal assessment for back-of-package claims without certifications to ensure a product meets specific minimum requirements.
Whole Foods does not recognize organic as a baseline standard for regenerative practices, which is one reason why it accepts more certifications than just ROC. Ann Marie Hourigan, Whole Foods Market’s vice president of quality standards, says it’s important to meet farmers where they are. But by filtering down to these four certifications, Whole Foods Market is already one step ahead of all other major grocery chains in the United States, staking itself as the most committed, at the moment, to the regenerative agriculture movement and reducing greenwashing.
Sprouts Farmers Market, the other large, national natural grocer, declined to be interviewed. Sprouts’ website contains some information about regenerative agriculture, but it does not mention whether the company believes organic practices must be considered regenerative or how it implements them in its buying practices, other than saying it will soon carry Regenerative Organic Certified products.
Whole Foods Market was a leader in forming the USDA’s organic program more than 20 years ago, and its quality standards decisions trickle throughout the entire regenerative agriculture ecosystem and the food industry at large. “We base the vast majority of what we’re adopting off of Whole Foods,” says Corsaro. “It’s the right unified and big tent approach that still has a high bar for integrity…you have to validate [farmers] along the path.”
Amy Bruch is a Nebraska corn farmer who runs USDA Organic Cyclone Farms. She says she had preliminary conversations with Regenified a few years ago regarding potential certification. Bruch says Regenified told her that any tillage would disqualify her farm, even though she uses minimal tillage to avoid chemicals entirely. “You have to remove weeds one way or another,” she explains.
All grocery stores are responsible for filtering what makes it onto their shelves, but natural grocers have higher consumer expectations. Fresh Thyme Market, a natural grocer with 70 locations across the Midwest, and Thrive Market, an online direct-to-consumer natural grocer, have an array of ROC-certified private label products and their own internal analyses for regenerative claims on packaging. “We work with suppliers to validate their regenerative claims, regardless of which certifier they’re using,” Thrive Market CMO April Lane tells Observer. “We want to work with as many suppliers as possible who are doing the right thing…Ideally [regenerative and organic] intersect, but sometimes it doesn’t, and that’s still better than a conventional product, in our mind.”
Regenerative agriculture, as a formal term, is still in its infancy. But “doing the right thing” and gaining a regenerative certification while still falling short of certain standards carves a path for potential greenwashing. Like Thrive Market, Fresh Thyme Market considers any regenerative certification but does its own internal assessment to validate the stamp. The one exception is ROC–if a product has ROC certification, no further assessment is necessary. “We entrust ROC certification to be that vetting process for us,” Fresh Thyme Market’s Kenneth Hausmann says. “It’s our ultimate goal to meet the customer where they’re at and help educate them along their journey and in the most accessible way possible.” Because there is no umbrella definition, each grocer creates its own assessment. At this time, they all seem to embrace the big tent approach of organic not being a necessary foundation for regenerative.
The big tent approach
The big tent approach of encouraging regenerative farming includes certifiers like Regenified, created in 2021, which does not require a USDA Organic certification to gain its own accreditation. However, Regenified says it encourages farms and products to receive it. Kristine Root, the company’s chief marketing officer, says Regenified doesn’t require organic certification partly to help transitioning farmers, noting that “only 1 percent of farming acres in the U.S. are organic” and many farmers see regenerative as “a pathway to farm resilience and profitability” without organic’s perceived restrictions.
Unlike Regenified, A Greener World, which also does not require USDA Organic certification, prohibits controversial inputs such as neonicotinoids and glyphosates on its Certified Regenerative farms and prohibits agrochemical use on crops that will be directly consumed. A Greener World’s Emily Moose says their certified farms use chemicals only in “targeted, justified” ways as part of plans to eliminate them eventually. “If you’re doing all these things but are not certified organic, for whatever reason, you are using regenerative practices,” she tells Observer. “From our perspective, those should be rewarded in the marketplace.”
If a certain degree of glyphosate is used on a farm, it will likely not obtain Regenified certification, as too much will negatively impact soil health. But beneath that threshold, it’s very possible. Some say that should be a non-starter. “Harmful chemicals deplete the soil, not regenerate,” Tkach says. Reducing tillage, or the use of heavy machinery, is widely accepted as a regenerative practice due to the way tilling can disturb the soil. But many argue that this particular point is being abused to claim ‘regenerative.’ “It’s this constant rhetoric that tillage is the enemy,” Tkach says. “The reality is, many of those farmers who are reducing their tillage are just adding more herbicide to their protocols. Rodale science has proven that tillage is not the demon. Tillage can actually be a tool, when used appropriately, to improve the health of the soil.”
Regenified’s verification standards state that its farms must compile a plan to reduce pesticides, but it does not have a list of prohibited chemical inputs. Root calls prohibited chemical lists “ a slippery slope” that would dictate management practices. “Tillage is a lot less complicated,” she says. Its standards refer to tillage as a “major physical disturbance,” and its highest-certified tier is only permitted to till once every four years. Candelario says these standards are problematic because they leave room for interpretation. “While they may say, ‘we want farmers to show that they’re reducing them over time,’ that’s a pretty gray area,” she says. Root disputes that Regenified has “the most rigorous standards in the industry.”
“From a consumer perspective, it might be confusing to learn that something with the word ‘regenerative’ on it is produced using glyphosate or neonicotinoids or synthetic agricultural chemicals,” says Joe Dickson, former Director of Quality Standards at Whole Foods Market and who previously sat on the board of the National Organic Standards. “Glyphosate is a carcinogenic substance that is being applied at wildly higher levels than ever imagined,” Dickson, who now advises brands on regulatory standards, continues. “There are so many reasons why I would hesitate to call the use of glyphosate regenerative in any way.”
The Regenerative Organic Alliance is addressing concerns that its high standard leaves little room for farmers in transition to participate. This fall, the ROA is expected to introduce ‘Journey to ROC,’ a program for farmers who meet at least one pillar of its standards, and will not necessarily need to be USDA Organic to start. “As long as they are on a path of continual improvement and get to a place within three to five years of actually having all of the standards met, they can apply that standard to ROC and don’t have to get re-certified,” Gergen says. “We want to encourage farmers to get on this path.” If a farmer is in this program, they will still be unable to use the ROC stamp until they meet its expansive standards, so consumers still view ‘regenerative’ with a high bar for integrity.
Third-party verification
A new SPINS report published in July shows that 85 percent of consumers trust independent, third-party certification organizations to verify product claims. ROC and A Greener World are both non-profit organizations that send third-party verifiers to their current and potential farms to collect data. Regenified is a for-profit entity because, as Root explains, “to be able to capture data at scale and build growth, a for-profit structure was the only way we would be able to drive that growth.” Regenified also does not conduct third-party audits. It has what it calls its internal “Verification Review Board,’ which reviews data from its Field Verifiers, and is comprised of members who must be “untainted by bias or conflict.”
“There’s a wall between who’s doing [Regenified’s] inspections and who’s looking at those reports and deciding whether or not they’ve met the criteria and that those safeguards aren’t built into Regenified’s program,” Candelario says. “People can use GMOs up the wazoo.” Faber adds, “Consumers concerned that companies may be grading their own homework might be worried if there is no third-party verification.”
However, in early 2025, Regenified became the first and only regenerative agriculture certifier to receive USDA Process Verified Program (PVP) verification, providing the organization with third-party audits by the USDA. Regarding PVP verification, Charlotte Vallaeys, former Director of Farm & Food Policy at the Cornucopia Institute and former Organic Expert at General Mills, says, “When I worked on food labels at Consumer Reports, we could usually trace new bogus labeling claims back to the USDA’s Process Verified Program—a program with a reputation for approving claims that even other agencies within the USDA wouldn’t.”
Organic vs. regenerative
Whole Foods’ Hourigan notes that consumers who want to avoid chemical inputs like glyphosate should look for organic certification, not just regenerative labels. Many sources say that regenerative agriculture is only necessary at this moment because over the past two and a half decades, the country has somewhat strayed from the true definition of organic. Many argue that organic farming was originally regenerative agriculture.
“If organic had stayed on top of animal welfare in a better way and had the ability to be more explicit about soil health requirements,” Dickson explains, “then regenerative wouldn’t be such a step above organic. But the reality is that it is.” Regenified views organic and regenerative as complementary, with regenerative focused on measuring ecosystem function. “Not requiring organic is critical to get us to a future of a better food system that has way less chemicals,” Root says.
But ROC believes that “Using synthetic inputs is extractive,” Gergen says. “Where the misnomer has happened is that ‘regenerative’ and soil health are synonymous in some people’s brains, but it’s not. At the end of the day, it’s soil health…Regenerative and non-organic are at odds with one another,” Gergen says.
However, Root says that Regenified views the two as complementary. “Not requiring organic is critical to get us to a future of a better food system that has way less chemicals,” she adds. ”We’re in a critical time where we need change to happen at scale.” Tkach goes so far as to say that it’s irresponsible for Whole Foods Market and other grocers to allow regenerative claims that permit certain chemical inputs like glyphosate.“Regenerative without organic allows for greenwashing,” he says. Healthier soil equals healthier crops, equals healthier people,” he adds, emphasizing his point that human health is a pillar of regenerative agriculture that can’t be ignored. “It’s not just about regenerating the soil. It’s about regenerating your body too.”
Consumer education
The new SPINS report shows that 44 percent of consumers are willing to pay a premium for products that improve the health of the land and environment. The regenerative movement is gaining traction. It shows a 22 percent year-over-year increase in shoppers buying Regenerative Organic Certified products. Although the federal government has not formalized a definition of regenerative agriculture, that doesn’t mean it still has a duty to regulate packaging claims. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has reportedly been preparing to update its Green Guide, which has not been updated since 2012 and stands as the FTC’s threshold for permitted environmental claims. The FTC declined to comment.
The question remains if having more than one certification program for the same practice is necessary for consumer trust or if it further confuses the consumer. about something that’s already somewhat complex. “Certifications aren’t really one size fits all,” Candelario says. “Each farm is like a fingerprint where each farmer has their own set of circumstances…The number one role of certifications and verification programs is to help, really, if it helps a farmer’s farm better.”
Dickson does believe there is room for multiple regenerative certifying bodies. “Where I worry, though,” he says, “is how the results, the products that come out of those programs, are marketed to consumers.” Candelario adds that there is more agreement on this matter than disagreement. “When people talk about regenerative agriculture, they’re keenly focused on soil health as the number one attribute in a regenerative farm system.”A true regenerative system does not end when the crops leave the farm. Where CPG brands, which source these ingredients, play a vital role in regenerative agriculture, is creating a market. This mission will stumble if consumers aren’t willing to pay a small premium for these products. The conflict within the community is only further distracting from the vital work of regenerative agriculture as a whole. There must be strict regulations to continue improving our food systems and environment. If not, the term could quickly become meaningless. Consumers will have the final say. In order for that to happen, they first need to understand what’s behind the seal. That, too, is part of the regenerative system.
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