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Olivia B

May 9, 2025

8

min read

Regenerative Agriculture: Three Expert Perspectives

At the Collective's May event, three panelists discussed how regenerative agriculture can drive value for farmers, businesses, and communities.

Regenerative Agriculture: Three Expert Perspectives

Our soil is in a critical state. Conventional agricultural practices are decimating the lifegiving properties of soil around the globe, releasing additional carbon into the atmosphere and rendering croplands infertile. Already a third of our planet’s soil is degraded, and UNESCO predicts that the number could be as high as 90% by 2050. Nowhere is immune — agricultural systems from giant operations in the Midwest to subsistence farms in rural Malawi are affected by soil degradation.


Regenerative agriculture offers a way forward, using sustainable land management practices to not only avoid doing more harm, but also to restore already degraded soil. At our fourth community networking event, we welcomed three expert panelists to share their perspectives on this pressing agricultural issue: Melissa Spear, Executive Director at Tilth Alliance; Paul Shoemaker, CEO of Carnation Farms; and Richard Moe, Principal Technical Program Manager at Opportunity International’s Digital Innovation Group. 


The Global Impact Collective brought together a diverse group of professionals from farmers to agronomists to professors to discuss this important subject. The topics ranged from the adoption to the economics and future of regenerative agriculture. A few key themes emerged:


Challenges


Establishing Standards of Regenerative Agriculture

Regenerative agriculture is widely defined as farming practices that are minimally disruptive to the soil, exercise crop diversity, utilize cover crops in the off season, and maintain living roots. However, unlike the rigorous criteria built around organic certification, we don’t yet have universally accepted standards and certifications for what it means to claim a company practices regenerative agriculture. If businesses and governments wish to certify and systematize regenerative farming, and if they want consumers to trust the certification, they will need hardier definitions.

  • Greenwashing: “Because it doesn’t have a definition, because there is no legal standard, regenerative agriculture is subject to greenwashing,” Melissa said. She pointed out that many large corporate food companies implement a no-till policy and label themselves regenerative despite still using pesticides and herbicides. “We have to figure out how to clarify and protect the integrity of what it is that we’re calling regenerative.” 

  • “Organic Plus”: Despite the term generally gaining traction, an average consumer will not have a clear idea of what regenerative agriculture means when the label appears on a food item. Paul suggested pitching the concept to consumers as “organic plus,” signifying that regenerative food has all the same qualifications of organic food plus the benefit of reinvigorating the soil. 

Entrenched Political Systems

A long history of political incentives has led the United States to favor large, corporate, conventional farms, often at the expense of smaller ones. Changing this existing bureaucracy is slow and arduous, but it can be done. Europe, for instance, is 10-15% organic, compared to only 1-2% in the US. 

  • Historical precedent: Paul identified three moments in American farming that led to our current agricultural system:  

    • At the end of World War II, pesticides and herbicides were commercialized on a broad scale.

    • Earl Butz, the Secretary of Agriculture under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, promoted a “get big or get out” approach to farming and urged farmers to plant commodity monocrops like corn “from fencerow to fencerow.” 

    • The focus on ethanol created a strong orientation towards conventional agriculture. 

  • Lack of subsidies and financial support: The 2018 Farm Bill allocated $428 billion dollars over five years for agricultural subsidies with the majority of those funds supporting conventional farming. The federal financial support for sustainable farming is extremely low by comparison, and the shift from conventional to regenerative is difficult.


Economic Barriers to Adoption

“It’s expensive to be an organic, regenerative farmer,” Melissa said. “You have higher labor costs, you make different kinds of investments, it’s a more complicated method of farming, and certification costs money.”

  • Slow transition time: The transition period from conventional to organic certified is three years, and during that time the farmer cannot sell the food with an organic premium despite farming organically. 

  • Lack of information: Rich pointed out that small-scale farmers, especially those living rurally and experiencing extreme poverty, often don’t know how to find markets, negotiate for better prices, and understand the economic outputs of their own farms. Existing resources are hard to access without basic literacy and access to the internet. “Getting information to the end user is critical,” he said.


Promising Developments


Farmers Educating Farmers

It’s critical that farmers teach one another. “We know that farmers learn best from farmers,” said Rich. To leverage this insight, Opportunity International is setting up a mentorship program in rural African farming communities and building its educational tools around insights gathered from the local farmers themselves. Rich mentioned OI’s agricultural team in Rwanda has implemented a system of “farmer support agents.” He says, “They get a bicycle, a pair of boots, a smartphone, and training, and in exchange they take the learnings out into their communities and spread it amongst the farmers in that community.”


Melissa also pointed to the Transition to Organic Partnership Program, which helps provide resources to aspiring organic and regenerative farmers. “Paying farmers to talk to farmers: that is really where the information gets transferred, because it’s often not as simple as reading a couple sentences. You need someone there to show you, to explain it to you, to demonstrate.”


Technological Advancements

Recent developments in technology, especially in the AI sector, have exciting implications for agriculture and education. 

  • Precision agriculture: With better instruments, companies and farmers can manage their farms more effectively. Robotic tools that monitor the soil, for instance, can inform users when they need to irrigate, look for pests, know when to apply pesticides, and so forth. “I think this is actually going to reduce the use of some of the more toxic synthetic chemicals on even conventional farms,” Melissa said. “Any stop toward eliminating or reducing the use of those chemicals is good.”

  • Agricultural education: Using generative AI and other tools, Rich and the Digital Innovation Group at Opportunity International are building a WhatsApp chatbot to help rural farmers in the field get answers to their questions. Given many might be illiterate, the bot can take verbal inputs in the farmers’ native languages, and it can analyze pictures of crops to determine diseases and offer advice.


Climate and Economic Resilience

Farms that practice regenerative agriculture withstand both market pressures and extreme weather. "You're more resilient to drought. You’re more resilient to heat. Your yields will remain higher in the face of a drastic climatic event,” Melissa said. 

  • Community relevance: Paul extrapolated this concept into economic resilience for whole communities by extension, using White Oak Pastures as an example. “They employ nearly a couple hundred people in their local community,” he said. “That’s economic resilience at all levels. The way to try to think about economic resilience is to think locally, think regionally, think within the Puget Sound to try to solve the problem in that domain if you have the chance.”

  • Interested customers: If consumers remain willing to pay the price premium for organic food, regenerative products will likely also do well on the market provided the certification issues are solved.

  • Shifting markets: Melissa mentioned market research by the Organic Trade Association that found young people driving demand for organic food. “Younger generations are faced with this existential crisis of climate change, are recognizing that eating is a political act, and that their food choices actually have social, environmental, and economic impacts. And they are willing to make the investment to go organic and regenerative.”


a crowd of attendees mingles in the Tactile event space
Attendees mingle before the panel.

Reflections

As the panel ended, the discussion was far from over with an insightful Q&A and further networking discussion. Dan Schiaffo, a consultant at Slalom who is currently pursuing a master’s program focused on sustainability, was left thinking about how to shift the public’s focus from organic to regenerative. “This sort of conversation is music to my ears. I absolutely love it,” he said.


Pamela Cardone shared the recent documentary Common Ground as a resource. The question of how to inspire conventional farms to use regenerative methods —even those who are hostile towards sustainability — piqued her interest as a financial risk analyst. “We have to show that they will make more money, even without the principles.” She wants to put her risk knowledge to better use in this space.


Several attendees were intimately familiar with the challenges growers face as growers themselves. George Thomas owns an alfalfa farm and recently got a grant from Tilth Alliance to plant a food forest and a prairie strip. The difficulty of growing alfalfa means that getting organic certified is a very unlikely prospect, but he still wants to make the farm more regenerative. “It’s important work. I think I could get there, eventually.”


Andrew Tuttle, a permaculture expert and educator currently restoring a historic farm in Arlington, is creating an online learning platform where participants can partake in virtual tours of regenerative lands. He wanted to stress that there is big investment in the field from nongovernmental sources. “The thing is, regenerative farming can make people really, really rich,” he said. “We don’t talk about that enough, and if it were more widely known, we could convince more farms to make the switch.”


He was excited to attend the event and wished there were more like it in his field. “We just need a pure opportunity to get together because the future of this industry depends on community. Cultural relationship-building comes from working together, and this is the way you do that.”


Zachary Gray from Adaptive Symbiotic Technologies, a company that is using fungi to protect plants from heat stress and difficult environments, echoed that sentiment.


The diversity of backgrounds and professions present at the event highlight just how interdisciplinary the challenge of implementing regenerative agriculture is, and the networking that took place promises that this wicked challenge has ever more brilliant minds working on it. A huge thank you to our panelists and everyone who attended.


Follow us on LinkedIn to stay connected to this vibrant and growing community, and we hope to see you at our next event in the fall.


Resources

  • Coalition for Organic and Regenerative Agriculture (CORA) is a coalition of farmers, businesses, organizations, and activists advocating for progressive programs and policies in support of organic and regenerative agriculture in Washington State. The Tilth Alliance is one of the 11 member organizations.


  • White Oak Pastures transitioned away from industrial agriculture techniques in 1995 and began operating their farm as a living ecosystem. They now raise 10 species of humanely treated animals, and the land is managed to increase living organic matter. They employ more than 155 members of their local community.


  • Common Ground Film is the sequel to Kiss the Ground, which the filmmakers claim inspired the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to put $20 billion toward soil health. The film explores the money, power, and politics intertwined in our broken food system and profiles farmers using regenerative agriculture models that could stabilize the climate, improve health, and grow America’s economy.


  • Transition to Organic Partnership Program is investing up to $100 million over five years in cooperative agreements with non-profit organizations providing technical assistance support, training, education, and outreach to aspiring organic farmers.


  • The Nature Conservancy supports building regenerative food systems and has a variety of resources on regenerative practices, food system solutions, technological innovations, as well as their Foodscapes Report, which provides a global perspective on necessary food systems transitions to meet “this century’s most pressing challenge: the threats posed by climate change, biodiversity loss, and increased demand on the integrity of the global food system.”


  • Regenerative Agriculture Podcast is a podcast for professional growers and agronomists who want to learn about the science and principles of regenerative agriculture systems to increase quality, yield, and profitability.


  • Noble Research Institute was founded in 1945 and is the nation’s largest nonprofit dedicated to farm and ranch management education to build soil health and increase profitability on U.S. farms and ranches. The organization has an entire category of research dedicated to regenerative agriculture.

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Food Waste Prevention in the Pacific Northwest: Three Expert Perspectives

Food Waste Prevention in the Pacific Northwest: Three Expert Perspectives

  • Writer: Olivia B
    Olivia B
  • Feb 20
  • 7 min read

Updated: Apr 1

Left to right: Judith Hochhauser Schneider, Emily Hovis, Naomi Logan, Leslie Mackie


The Pacific Northwest leads the nation in its efforts to prevent food waste. Anyone keen to join the endeavor—whether they be a multinational corporation or simply a home chef—should heed our region’s advancements in sustainable business, health science, and retail technology as we forge the future of food rescue.  

 

To this end, the Global Impact Collective hosted our third event for the Seattle community featuring three panelists on the cutting edge of food waste reduction. Our Vice President of Partnership Development, Judith Hochhauser Schneider, moderated the panel discussion between these experts: Emily Hovis, an Assistant Teaching Professor at the University of Washington’s Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences, former food safety regulator, and small farm owner, brought knowledge of government policy to the panel; Naomi Logan, head of product at Shelf Engine, offered insights into retail technological solutions to food waste prevention by improving inventory accuracy; and Leslie Mackie, founder and owner of beloved local establishment Macrina Bakery, provided a local business and restaurateur perspective.


After a lively social gathering in the workspace of our partner Tactile, Inc., the panel began. The panelists explored the sprawling landscape of food systems, touching on everything from government policy in food rescue to the use of smart sensors in grocery store freezers. Their discussion of health regulation, customer miseducation, and the underfunding of volunteer organizations gave insight into the true scope of the challenges of food rescue efforts in any local community. Yet despite how large each challenge loomed, the panel was optimistic about reducing food waste, citing new technologies that can be integrated into our systems, community partnerships between businesses, and the importance of data to make sure food gets to those who need it. 


Challenges


Changing Business Behavior at Scale

Without incentives that encourage businesses to adopt prevention programs and robust infrastructure, progress can be slow and arduous.

  • Entrenched practices: Many businesses have ordering and supply procedures that, while inefficient and wasteful from a food systems perspective, are deeply ingrained or difficult to alter, and there’s little financial incentive to shift to more prevention-friendly frameworks. 

  • Lack of rigorous transportation systems: Bringing excess food to those who need it is logistically difficult. “Most food banks are run by volunteers,” Leslie pointed out. “Getting someone who can drive to Kent [where the Macrina’s Bakery facility is based] for whatever might be needed is difficult.” 

  • Practical considerations: Leslie explained that Macrina Bakery needs to bake excess product because it ensures that if a baked good is dropped, burned, or not up to quality standards, it can be replaced. Additionally, without advanced data analysis systems at the retail level, it’s impossible to know in advance what products customers will or won’t buy on a certain day. 


Health Policy in Food Rescue

Rescuing perishables from retailers and grocers accomplishes nothing if the food is unsafe to consume by the time it reaches the individuals whom it’s meant to feed.  

  • Mishandling of donations: “You would have a food business who is donating the food and it's like, great. That's what we want to have happen,” Emily said, recalling her days as a food safety inspector. “But then they're not actually handling it like it is food for a customer. They're leaving a pallet of refrigerated food on the loading dock because they're waiting for it to be picked up because they were told that a volunteer would come. Then the volunteer doesn’t come, and the food just sits there.” 

  • Lower food quality: Products with the shortest shelf life, such as fresh bread, milk, and eggs, are often also the healthiest. Without safe transport for these foods, only canned and processed food will reach those in need. “We want to make sure that the food that's being donated and given to people is not just packaged garbage. We want to make sure that they're getting nutrient-dense food that's going to feed their bodies,” Emily said.  


Lack of Consumer Education

Consumers have a role to play in food waste prevention, yet most do not understand how to reduce their own waste or why it’s a problem. “Recycling's not perfect, but I think most people know what recycling is and how to do it,” Emily said. “We don't really have that for food waste.” 

  • Insufficient label regulation: “Almost all labels on packaged foods are a manufacturers’ best guess of the best quality of that food.” She encourages her students to not rely solely on the printed expiration dates when deciding whether to throw food out (within reason), instead using their senses to determine its quality. “I talk to so many people who throw out food all the time because there's a date on it.”  

  • Expectations of abundance: Customers presuming constant and ample access to all types of produce, regardless of season, drive unsustainable farming habits and pollutive, expensive transportation.  

  • Appearance judgments: People are hesitant to embrace “misfit” produce, leading companies to toss perfectly viable but imperfect-looking food. “Consumers need to understand that produce looks different when it comes out of the ground, and only a small subset of produce makes it to market. Some of the ugly stuff never gets harvested,” Emily said.


Opportunities


Technological Advancements

Companies like Shelf Engine are leading the charge towards integrating technology into our food systems to make them more environmentally friendly.  

  • Improved accuracy: “Variable conditions in stores, what lot you got from the vendor, making sure that you order enough so that even with the amount of variability you’ll still have enough product on hand—all of these can be the cause of a lot of waste,” explained Naomi. In the future, she envisions computerized inventory management that uses sensors to detect spoilage, monitor freezers, and track shelf life. 

  • AI-fueled predictive tech: “The predictions are getting so much better, and there's just no way that a human can do that as well as technology does,” Naomi said.


Increased Visibility and Funding

Washington and the broader Pacific Northwest have seen a renewed interest in food waste prevention. “We’ve had more funding within the last few years, primarily because of the COVID pandemic and big increases in food insecurity,” Emily said. “There’s a lot of research and interest in this space, and people are trying to figure out how we can do better.” As a result, we’ve seen: 

  • Investment in hunger relief: Organizations can afford to pay volunteers and invest in more rigorous, standardized systems for transporting rescued food.  

  • Improved food safety: With increased funding, companies can also afford larger fleets of refrigerated vehicles to maintain the all-important cold chain, ensuring that food reaches recipients in a timely and safe manner. 

  • Education efforts: Anne Garsztka of the World Wildlife Fund mentioned the WWF’s Food Waste Warriors program, which could help reduce educational shortcomings. “We can teach kids and reach their parents through them. Once they know about waste, they’ll correct their parents and teachers. They're like, ‘Oh, no, no, no, that goes in that bin.’” 


Community Partnerships

No single business can handle all the moving pieces of food rescue, which is where community comes in. Each party contributes what they can to establish a food rescue chain and create value-added products. For instance, Macrina Bakery has found new ways to reclaim unsold bread by fostering business partnerships with PCC Community Markets and FareStart, a nonprofit helping people overcome barriers to employment by training them in food service. “Macrina is picking up bread from PCC that’s shrink [loss of inventory] left over, then bringing it to our freezer. Then FareStart picks up the bread from Macrina, and they repurpose it into croutons,” Leslie explained. “From March to December of last year, we recovered about 3,500 pounds of bread.” 


Filling Data Vacuums

Missing data often prevents food from reaching its destination. Emily is working on a research project with the Washington State Department of Ecology to create a food rescue map, working closely with hunger relief organizations. When completed, the rescue map will quickly and smoothly connect farms with relief services and people in need, and it will be regularly updated and maintained by the Department of Ecology. 


attendees gather around panelists
Attendees listen to the panelists speak.

Reflections

After the panel, attendees discussed their takeaways. “In any innovation space there’s exciting energy, and we need that. It’s easy to feel bogged down, but in this space, there’s only positive energy,” said Kate Thel, community engagement coordinator at Seattle Good Business Network. “People are putting their heads together to find solutions.” 


Others echoed her sentiment. “I thought my network was so developed and then I come here and realize how many folks I don’t know—who are interested in all the same things!” said Jillian Moore, whose business, Cascadia Produce, specializes in rescuing surplus food from farms and getting it to food-insecure individuals. “There are all these people outside our networks also having these conversations. It’s so exciting.” 


Ideas from the event are also finding their way into schools. Vaanya Sharma, a junior at Interlake Senior High School, not only founded an environmental impact club to educate peers and younger students on food waste, but she also serves as a Lead for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Youth Ambassadors Program. Vaanya is currently collaborating with the school board to create a sustainability plan for the Bellevue School District, and she has been nominated for the 2025 EPA’s President’s Environmental Youth Award. “There’s a lot of opportunity to get younger people involved in sustainability,” she said.  


Naomi Logan from Shelf Engine, one of our panelists, was surprised and inspired by the diversity of participants. “I’m impressed by how many people showed up from totally different levels of experience, ages, industries, et cetera. I hope we’ll figure out if there are ways we can build broader partnerships with these communities and harness some of their interests and ideas, making connections across the industry.” 


True to our values, every leftover pizza found a home by night’s end, and no food was wasted. Every attendee left brimming with ideas that, if the intensity of the discussion was any indication, will soon take root beyond the walls of Tactile—whether that means designing new government policies, investing in consumer education programs, or simply embracing the ugly fruits neglected at the bottom of a grocery display. Change of any size brings us closer to a waste-free, well-fed future. 


Big thanks again to all who attended, and to our amazing panelists who kept this discussion alive. The Global Impact Collective will be hosting our next community networking event in May, tackling another wicked issue with a fresh panel of experts. Keep an eye out for more details soon! In the meantime, follow us on LinkedIn to get involved and stay up to date. 

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