Conventional agriculture accounts for nearly 24 percent of greenhouse gas emissions and threatens more than 80 percent of species already at risk of extinction. Sustainable farming methods seek to reduce the harm that conventional practices (like applying harsh pesticides) do to land, whereas regenerative agriculture goes beyond a harm-reduction approach to restore ecosystems and add to nature’s richness.
This page features information about the Rainforest Alliance's work on regenerative agriculture and links to all our related content and resources.
For more than 30 years, we’ve worked to make agriculture more sustainable by partnering with farms and companies all over the world. We consider sustainability to be a journey—and for us, the final destination is regeneration. Building on our many years of experience in tropical agriculture, we are now supporting farms and companies that are ready to transition to a regenerative model.
What does regenerative agriculture look like in practice? Here the Rainforest Alliance breaks down its core components.
The Rainforest Alliance offers companies the tools they need to advance to a regenerative model.
Download this sell sheet on how companies can shift to regenerative agriculture within their supply chains and in the regions they source from—and how we can help.
Meeting the demand for agricultural commodities—while conserving biodiversity, and mitigating and adapting to climate change—is a major challenge of this century. The Rainforest Alliance believes that agroforestry systems provide a holistic approach, simultaneously conserving biodiversity, improving livelihoods, and increasing the resilience of agriculture to climate-change impacts.... Continue Reading
What can be done to reduce this reliance on pesticides and the negative consequences of pesticide use? A practical and cost-effective answer is integrated pest management (IPM).... Continue Reading
For the Rainforest Alliance, “regenerative agriculture” comprises a broad set of principles and practices under the umbrella of climate-smart agriculture. Taking an agroecology and integrated system management approach, regenerative agriculture aims to increase biodiversity, enhance ecosystem services, and increase agroecosystem resilience thus leading to resilient livelihoods. This way of farming is based on enhancing the […]... Continue Reading
Building upon years of experience and expertise in the coffee sector, the Rainforest Alliance Regenerative Coffee Scorecard offers both certified and non-certified supply chain actors a voluntary tool to guide their transition to regenerative farming. Using Rainforest Alliance certification as a starting place, the scorecard helps users evaluate producer performance against key regenerative metrics and […]... Continue Reading
The vibrant food we eat is all thanks to farmworkers and the land. And yet, conventional agriculture—with its dependence on toxic chemicals—often comes at the expense of both. That’s why the Rainforest Alliance is campaigning to ban paraquat, one of the world’s most dangerous weedkillers.
Connected crises threaten our future—from the climate emergency and spiraling biodiversity loss to chronic rural poverty and human rights challenges. We need a systemic approach—a transformative... View more
What can be done to reduce this reliance on pesticides and the negative consequences of pesticide use? A practical and cost-effective answer is integrated pest management (IPM).
Santiago Gowland, CEO at The Rainforest Alliance, explains how the principles of regenerative agriculture helps firms implement practices from soil conservation to crop diversification into their supply chains.
For farmers, sustainability is a journey. The destination? Regenerative agriculture.
Juliana Jaramillo, the Rainforest Alliance’s global lead for regenerative agriculture, explains how we have the means to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss crises by changing the way we ‘do’ agriculture.
