1980s: The term “regenerative agriculture” was first employed by the Rodale Institute (see the article by Ananda Fitzsimmons on regenerative agriculture in Canadian Organic Growers Magazine)
2015 | COP21:
- The Paris Agreement acknowledges the role of agriculture in the fight against climate change
- This acknowledgement helps legitimize the 4 per 1000 initiative launched on December 1st, 2015 as part of the Lima-Paris Action Plan, which introduces the idea that increasing the quantity of carbon stored in soils by 0.4% per year would allow us to offset annual increases in CO2 emissions into the atmosphere.
2015: The Federal government’s climate plan acknowledges the role of agricultural soils in sequestering carbon
2018: Giants in the agri-food industry like General Mills, Danone and Patagonia encourage farmers to adopt regenerative agricultural practices
August 2019: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
releases a report addressing the use of soils in the context of a warming planet and warns that managing to contain this warming effect will require changes in the way that land is managed and how food is produced.
December 5, 2019 | COP25: In 2014, December 5 was declared World Soil Day (WSD), an initiative designed to draw attention to the importance of having healthy soils and managing soil resources in a sustainable manner.
Early 2020: expected release of Canada’s new Climate Plan, in which the
importance of healthy soils and their power to sequester carbon should be acknowledged.