Introduction

The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) estimates that world population will exceed ten billion by 2050, driving higher food demand and intensifying pressures on natural resources that are already strained––not only as a result of food waste and the use of fossil fuels, synthetic fertilisers, and pesticides, but also because these practices are causing soil deterioration.^[1] Structural global degradation is widespread: 20 percent of irrigated land is affected by salinisation, and one-third is vulnerable to erosion, compaction, and organic-matter loss.^[2] If current trends in decarbonisation, desertification, and chemical contamination continue, much of the fertile soil layer essential for food production could be compromised within decades, with repercussions for nutritional quality, supply stability, and global food security. The loss of biodiversity, the disappearance of traditional races, and the erosion of local agronomic knowledge further weaken food systems, stripping them of ecological and cultural continuity.^[3]

These dynamics, exacerbated by the worsening climate crisis and demographic pressures, are making agricultural production fragile, especially given its exposure to shifting geopolitical configurations that affect supply chains, price volatility, and the progressive reduction of profit margins. In the European Union, including Italy—the context of the case study presented in this paper—agricultural producers are increasingly subject to a more stringent environmental regulatory framework. This includes the implementation of the EU Green Deal, the Farm to Fork Strategy, and the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) 2023–2027, which introduces eco-schemes, biodiversity targets, and stricter soil and water management criteria. The Soil Health Law and the Nature Restoration Law (2025) further establish binding obligations for soil monitoring and ecosystem restoration, directly impacting farm operations and compliance costs. Ensuring sufficient, high-quality food production while keeping the entire productive system within the ecological limits of the planet, therefore, requires a profound, systematic redefinition of agricultural models, oriented primarily towards forms of management capable of combining economic viability, ecological balance, and food security.

Emerging as a possible strategy is regenerative agriculture—grounded in the restoration of soil ecological functions and the reconstruction of impaired biological processes, and aimed at re-establishing ecosystem equilibrium and improving essential soil functions such as carbon sequestration capacity, water retention, and microbial biodiversity. FAO refers to it as “holistic farming systems which, among various benefits, improve the quality of water and air, increase biodiversity in ecosystems, produce nutrient-dense food and store carbon, thereby contributing to climate change mitigation, designed in harmony with nature and capable of maintaining and enhancing economic sustainability.”^[4] In contrast with the linear logic of the supply chain—structured as a one-way, extractive sequence from field to consumption––regenerative agriculture is configured as a complex, interdependent system in which ecological, economic, and social relations operate through reciprocity and feedback. It is presented as a coherent set of practices and territorial management strategies oriented towards re-establishing circular value circuits and continuous processes of resource restitution.^[5]

While part of the same ecological paradigm as organic agriculture and agroecology, regenerative agriculture differs in its conceptual architecture and operational scope. Global analyses summarised in a June 2025 review indicate that, in the early stages of transition, yields in regenerative systems are on average 5-10 percent lower than in conventional systems; however, in the medium term, around 60 percent of cases report higher yields—typically a 10-15 percent increase—and an approximate 20-percent rise in net farm income, primarily due to lower input costs and greater yield stability.^[6] Regenerative agriculture is not like organic agriculture,^[a] or agroecology.^[b] It is configured as a technical-scientific, systematic model that goes beyond the primarily conservation-oriented dimension of the above criteria.^[7],[8] It intervenes proactively to restore the ecological and biogeochemical functions of production systems through verifiable practices of carbon sequestration, soil-fertility enhancement, and the valorisation of the functional diversity of biotic communities.

Outcomes of regenerative agriculture are not univocal: yields and carbon storage vary widely depending on pedo-climatic conditions, the practices adopted, and the scale of application.^[9]-[10] In the short term, yield reductions may occur as soil biogeochemical dynamics rebalance.^[11] Another important consideration is the possibility that industrial actors may appropriate the concept while leaving production and distribution models largely unchanged.^[12] This is due to institutional and economic impediments—including subsidy systems that mostly favour conventional agriculture and fragmented certification schemes—that discourage the coherent spread of regenerative models.^[13]

Independent assessments of carbon-farming programmes and voluntary standards show that certification, monitoring, and intermediation costs absorb a substantial share of the value generated by credits, leaving only a marginal portion for small producers compared with industrial operators and financial intermediaries.^[14] A successful transition would need stable policy instruments, consistent incentive structures, and monitoring focused on ecological benefits and social impacts that can be measured by some empirical criteria.^[15] Studies have shown that rotational grazing, cover crops, and no-till systems decrease agricultural emissions intensity and increase the biological and physical properties of soils.^[16] Notably, the accumulation of soil organic carbon remains a decisive parameter for climate mitigation and productive stability under extreme events.^[17]

Principles, Practices, and Benefits of Regenerative Agriculture

Regenerative agriculture operates on the ecological functions of agricultural systems through a structured set of practices aimed at restoring soil quality, rebalancing biogeochemical processes, and reconstructing the conditions that sustain productivity over the medium term. Available evidence must be read against the background of high-input systems which, while guaranteeing high yields in the short term, generate cumulative effects—erosion, compaction, nutrient loss—that eventually compromise the ecological functionality of soils and reduce their productive capacity.^{[18],[19],[20],[21]} In this context, a study conducted in India based on 147 trials found that adopting regenerative practices for more than five years led to a 10- to 25-percent increase in soil organic carbon, with benefits that persisted over the medium term .

The operational core of regenerative practices is the integration of conservation tillage, diversified crop rotations, cover crops, and agroforestry or livestock systems adapted to local pedo-climatic conditions. Recent research reports a 15- to 30-percent increase in soil microbial biomass, a 20- to 35-percent increase in pollinator populations, and a 10- to 25-percent rise in beneficial predatory insects compared to high-input systems, outlining regenerative agriculture’s contribution to rebuilding ecological networks that support production. Advanced grazing-management models—including Adaptive Multi-Paddock (AMP) grazing—have shown a clear capacity to improve carbon dynamics and the hydrological functioning of grasslands, restoring more stable structural conditions to grazing systems.^[22],[23] Significant and consistent evidence is found even in other pedo-climatic contexts: in Brazil, diversified rotations combined with no-till systems led to soil organic-carbon accumulation and higher production continuity in tropical areas; in West Africa, agroforestry interventions with shaded canopies generated yield gains, after crest renewal, increasingly further with plot-management programmes, developed through Nespresso’s training initiatives.^[24],[25]

Even when agronomic conditions appear relatively similar, variability in outcomes remains pronounced. Recent literature describes this through the idea of a “patchy Anthropocene”, a term that captures how environmental pressures, structural fragilities, and institutional capacities are distributed unevenly across territories.^[26] This fragmented landscape shapes how regenerative practices respond to local constraints, influences their overall effectiveness, and produces highly differentiated implementation pathways.

Interest in regenerative agriculture extends to the nutritional dimension. While several findings originate from North America (e.g., Montgomery, 2017), comparative studies have also been conducted in Europe (e.g., Benbrook et al., 2020) and Australia (e.g., Reganold et al., 2010), confirming similar patterns in soil microbiome diversity and crop nutrient profiles.^[27],[28] Several studies—including meta-analyses and longitudinal research—highlight the link between soil microbial degradation and the reduction in nutrient density of food crops, especially micronutrients such as zinc, iron, and phytochemicals (White & Broadley, 2005; Davis et al., 2009; Benbrook et al., 2020). As Professor of Geomorphology at University of Washington, David Montgomery notes, “re-thinking our diet – not only what we consume, but how we produce it – may be one of the most effective levers to curb the spread of chronic disease.”^[29] Evidence suggests links between soil microbial diversity, the nutritional profile of crops, and the composition of the human microbiome, highlighting possible repercussions for inflammatory, immune, and digestive processes.^[30],[31] Restoring the biological functions of soils, therefore, matters not only for agronomic discussions but also for broader debate on how food systems intersect with public health.

Market Trends and Regional Perspectives

In 2022, the global regenerative agriculture market was valued at US$924 million, with a projected compound annual growth rate of 15.7 percent between 2023 and 2030.^[32] This expansion reflects growing alignment among public policies, climate finance, and corporate strategies geared towards ecological transition, supported by tax incentives, training programmes, and green-credit instruments. However, market dynamics do not automatically translate into structural progress at ecological or social level: without uniform metrics and transparent governance mechanisms, the sector’s rapid capitalisation risks concentrating value and decision-making power in segments of the chain with greater bargaining strength, reproducing problems already observed in subsidy regimes and certification systems.^[33],[34]

In North America, where in 2023 agriculture accounted for 36.2 percent of global revenues and is projected to reach a market value of US$7.69 billion by 2033, the adoption of regenerative practices is widespread but embedded in a regulatory landscape that became more volatile in 2025 following the review and suspension of several climate-smart programmes and related disputes with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).^[35] Some lines of continuity remain. For over three decades, USDA-     NIFA programmes—especially SARE^[c]—have backed field-based research, on-farm assistance, and training activities, helping regenerative practices take root across farms and ranches.^[36]

Market momentum is also shaped by public initiatives: major agri-food companies have begun to position themselves as well. General Mills, for example, has committed to applying regenerative methods on one million acres by 2030, while Cargill has started soil-restoration projects developed with networks of local producers.^[37] On the certification front, the Regenerative Organic Certification, promoted by the Rodale Institute and the Regenerative Organic Alliance, represents an advanced attempt at standardisation, though it remains subject to debate regarding transparency and consistency of criteria, with risks similar to those observed in the organic sector. ^[38],[39]

In Asia, the picture is shaped by overlapping forces: growing insistence on traceable production, the need for greater transparency along supply chains, and the spread of blended-finance tools that mix public funding with private and climate-related capital. Thailand offers an illustrative case. A US$120-million programme supported by Olam Agri, PepsiCo, Mars, the national government, and the Green Climate Fund now reaches more than 250,000 farmers across the main rice-producing regions in the country. The project connects soil-restoration work with carbon-market participation, depending on monitoring arrangements designed to produce verifiable data.^[40] In Southeast Asia, collaboration between Grow Asia and ASEAN improves access to financial services and long-term credit lines—including the ASEAN Sustainable Agriculture Loan Facility—designed to support smallholders and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) seeking to integrate regenerative practices into their production systems.^[41]

In India, farmer-producer organisations (FPOs) and certified organic farms interact with a wide network of suppliers providing organic inputs, composting services, biofertilisers, and seeds.^[42] The most significant opportunities are emerging in high-tech segments, where digital platforms, research centres, and agritech startups combine predictive models with precision agriculture.^[43] In Maharashtra, a programme launched by the international network of Solidaridad in 2020-2021 and based on the regenagri standard^[d]—today applied to more than 2.2 million hectares worldwide—has involved around 8,000 cotton growers, with documented increases in soil organic carbon, functional biotic diversity, and water-retention capacity.^[44] According to the Regenagri 2024 Impact Report, the adoption of certified practices in cotton systems led to an average reduction of 23 percent in the carbon footprint per hectare between 2023 and 2024; in green coffee in Brazil, emissions fell by 81,819 tCO₂eq across 72,598 hectares, equivalent to a 26-percent reduction per tonne of product, while soil organic-matter values in certified farms range from 0.5-0.8 percent in the most degraded contexts to more than 11 percent in areas with a more extended history of regenerative practices.^[45]

Despite market growth from US$110.5 million in 2023 to US$302 million in 2030 (CAGR 15.5 percent), regenerative agriculture in Latin America retains a strong agroecological connotation, rooted in traditional knowledge and biodiversity conservations.^[46] Peasant movements and territorial networks—including La Vía Campesina^[e]—continue to provide a political and cultural reference point alternative to industrial models.^[47] The distance from measurement-driven regenerative practices and participation in global climate markets reflects a conception of sustainability centred on food-system self-determination and territorial pluralism, with direct implications for access to finance and the definition of impact metrics.

In Africa, regenerative agriculture is increasingly recognised as a tool to enhance food security and mitigate soil degradation, which affects more than 65 percent of cultivated land.^[48] In South Africa, the market—supported by government programmes and multilateral partnerships—is expected to grow from US$17.7 million to US$44.5 million between 2023 and 2030 (CAGR 14.1 percent).^[49] However, adoption is hampered by limited access to credit and technology, weak training systems, poor integration into global markets, and a lack of mechanisms to remunerate ecosystem services. Institutional and infrastructural asymmetries accentuate the distance from Europe, where regenerative practices are developing within a more established regulatory framework based on green finance and certification standards.

According to different analyses in Europe, the regenerative agriculture market on the continent—driven by demand for sustainable products, companies’ ESG targets, and increasing capital flows into green finance—will reach US$824.3 million by 2030.^[50] While the CAP and the Farm to Fork strategy^[f] provide the overarching framework, the latest direction is defined by the Clean Industrial Deal and by the proposal to revise the European Climate Law, which sets a binding 90-percent reduction in net emissions by 2040.^[51] Cereal, dairy, and wine value chains are reconfiguring their sourcing models along regenerative lines, integrating traceability, emissions reduction, and territorial valorisation.

Carbon farming is gaining relevance as a mechanism for remunerating ecosystem services and has been supported by the Carbon Removal Certification Framework (CRCF), in force since 2024, which provides for independent verification of removals and recognises regenerative practices among the eligible methodologies.^[52] The sector’s evolution is also driven by multidimensional indicators—soil health and fertility, biodiversity, water management, and territorial impacts—which, in line with the proposed Soil Health Law and the Clean Industrial Deal standards, orient the system towards a productive model based on the reconstruction of ecological capital as a structural component of European competitiveness.^[53]

Policy Framework and Current Instruments

The consolidation of regenerative agriculture depends on clear regulatory frameworks, metrics that can be shared across sectors, and genuine convergence between scientific evidence and governance. The absence of a legally recognised, harmonised definition remains a structural constraint: the international community has yet to establish which elements fall under the notion of regenerative agriculture, and the literature highlights wide interpretative variability—from outcome-based approaches to definitions centred on sets of practices—with significant implications for regulation, reporting, and impact comparability.^[54] Although regenerative practices align with the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement, which place soils, biodiversity, and climate mitigation and adaptation at the core, their operational translation varies markedly across regions due to institutional, technological, and financial reasons.^[55]

In Africa, the landscape is characterised by a mosaic of multi-level initiatives. The African Union’s Great Green Wall seeks to restore 100 million hectares of degraded land in the Sahel by 2030. In parallel, national programmes in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Ghana are integrating soil regeneration, agroforestry, and carbon-farming initiatives within their climate-smart agriculture strategies, frequently supported by multilateral banks and international funds.^[56] The presence of programmes at different scales does not, however, translate into uniform progress, as disparities persist in administrative capacity, access to technology, and the robustness of monitoring systems.

In the US, regenerative agriculture is advancing through a plurality of federal, state, and private initiatives. USDA programmes such as the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), launched in 2002, continue to support compatible practices such as cover crops, no-till, and rotational grazing; the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities, launched in 2022, have mobilised more than US$3.1 billion to promote lower-impact production systems. The revisions and suspensions introduced in 2025 to parts of these climate-smart initiatives, along with the associated litigation, have increased regulatory uncertainty in the absence of comprehensive federal policy and a uniform certification system.^[57]

In Asia, regenerative principles are increasingly integrated into regional development-bank programmes and initiatives targeting the rice sector in India, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Operational priorities include increasing soil organic carbon, improving water-use efficiency, and protecting biodiversity, alongside a growing focus on developing climate markets grounded in verifiable data and adopting monitoring systems consistent with international standards.^[58]

In Europe, the Common Agricultural Policy and the Farm to Fork strategy have introduced eco-schemes and measures for biodiversity and sustainable soil management; yet the European Commission has recognised that these instruments have not delivered results of sufficient robustness.^[59] To address these limitations, the EU in 2025 established a more integrated framework: the Soil Health Law sets common criteria for soil health monitoring and protection, while the Nature Restoration Law sets legally binding targets for restoring degraded ecosystems. It requires the restoration of at least 20 percent of terrestrial and marine areas by 2030 and introduces measures intended to halt—and gradually reverse—the decline of pollinators.^[60] Their implementation will require close coordination among member states and financial allocations that remain uneven across the Union.

Carbon farming is presented as a tool for linking CO₂ removals with soil-regeneration practices; however, an exclusive focus on carbon risks obscuring other equally decisive dimensions, including biodiversity, soil quality, and social equity. The Carbon Removal Certification Framework (CRCF), in response to these concerns, establishes a voluntary certification system based on independent verification of removals.^[61] Even if it strengthens the transparency and credibility of removal markets, the CRCF does not capture the full complexity of regenerative agriculture: its effectiveness depends on integrated metrics and context-specific approaches capable of maintaining coherence between ecological goals, economic viability, and the social dimension of production systems.

Barriers to Adoption

Despite clear advances, the scaling up of regenerative practices is still hindered by a series of constraints that rarely act in isolation. They intersect across economic, technical-scientific, and institutional domains, generating an operational landscape that often fails to align with the objectives formally set out.

From an economic standpoint, the transition to systems built around conservation tillage, diversified rotations, or adaptive grazing requires substantial upfront investment and, in the early stages, a phase of adjustment in which yields can fluctuate and may not offset incurred costs. This temporal imbalance—between immediate costs and gradual benefits—weighs disproportionately on small farms, especially where ongoing incentive programmes, reliable mechanisms for remunerating ecosystem services, and market channels capable of absorbing differentiated production are lacking.^[62] The result is a structural perception of risk that limits farmers’ propensity to change and abandon conventional models.

The technical-scientific dimension features equally significant criticalities. The availability of appropriate expertise—in advisory services and agronomic support—is uneven: many structures still operate according to productivist paradigms that overlook the ecological and contextual nature of regenerative systems, while knowledge transfer from research to practice remains fragmented and poorly supported by continuous institutional coordination, with direct consequences for the ability to translate scientific innovation into robust operational solutions.^[63] This discontinuity is amplified by the predominance of short-term productivity indicators, an orientation that sidelines more systemic readings of biological processes and of the connections linking soil dynamics, landscape structures, and socio-economic conditions.^[64]

From an institutional standpoint, the barriers stem from the absence of integrated steering among public administrations, businesses, research organisations, and climate-finance instruments. Programming cycles are often too short relative to the time horizons required to consolidate regenerative practices. Mechanisms for remunerating ecosystem services—whether linked to carbon credits, biodiversity, or soil-quality improvements—are expanding, yet they remain fragmented, costly to measure, and in many cases difficult for small producers to access.^[65] A genuinely systemic issue must also be highlighted: risk management. Insurance tools and supply-chain contracts are modelled on conventional production systems and do not account for either the initial variability of regenerative trajectories or the time required to restore soil functions. Responsibility for any income loss, therefore, remains concentrated at the farm level, in the absence of mechanisms to share risk along the value chain.

It is also important to emphasise that the configuration of barriers varies according to territorial characteristics and the production models within which practices must be implemented: in sub-Saharan Africa, soil degradation, limited technical infrastructure, and restricted credit availability are predominant constraints; in contexts subject to severe water stress—such as Mediterranean regions—integrating soil management, water planning, and structural investments is a necessary operational prerequisite; in highly intensified systems—for example, those of north-western Europe and the US Midwest—dependence on external inputs and contract farming narrows the scope for agronomic reconfiguration.^[66] Therefore, adoption cannot be understood as merely applying a standardised suite of practices: it requires genuine political, institutional, and financial congruence with the specificities of local systems. Without adequate alignment between scientific knowledge, administrative capacity, and economic instruments with stable time horizons, the transformative potential of regenerative agriculture will manifest only partially and unevenly, with effects largely confined to contexts with more favourable institutional and infrastructural conditions.

Policy Recommendations

A necessary condition for consolidating regenerative agriculture is the creation of a governance framework capable of integrating scientific knowledge, financial instruments, and regulatory horizons that extend over the long term. At the multilateral level, the issue must be addressed in the forums where global agendas on climate, biodiversity, and food systems are defined—particularly within the UNFCCC, FAO, and G20 platforms—to overcome the current fragmentation and affirm soil health as a structural element of both mitigation and adaptation strategies.^[67] Equally important is a stronger role for multilateral development banks in designing financial tools with longer timeframes, able to support the initial phases of transition, especially in countries with limited fiscal capacity and intermittent access to credit. Although the heterogeneity of today’s programmes and the proliferation of thematic funds attest to growing interest in the model, the absence of an overarching design remains the dominant feature.

A further condition concerns the definition of monitoring, measurement, reporting, and verification (MMRV) systems that ensure scientific rigour and credibility in environmental markets. Public-sector-led MMRV frameworks—grounded in transparent indicators, proportionate costs, and independent verification procedures—are essential to ensuring that mechanisms for remunerating ecosystem services do not replicate the asymmetries already observed in other climate-finance instruments.^[68] In contexts where certification and technical-assistance costs are prohibitive, public support for these functions is essential if small and medium-sized producers are to access market mechanisms without disadvantage.

At the regional scale, new configurations of cooperation are emerging that reflect agroecological affinities and shared priorities in soil management. Initiatives involving South and Southeast Asian countries and several African states show how South-South cooperation platforms can provide effective spaces for exchanging technical expertise, systematising local knowledge and jointly adapting low-impact technologies; they can also help define a core set of common criteria for assessing the climatic performance of production systems and tailoring financial instruments to the socio-economic specificities of the territories concerned, thereby overcoming the fragmentation of current interventions.^[69] A meaningful lever could come from bringing regional trade policies into alignment with more demanding environmental standards, as incorporating soil-health and biodiversity criteria into existing agreements would make products from regenerative systems economically more competitive and strengthen their access to domestic and international markets.^[70]

At the national level, anchoring the model within agricultural, climate, and rural-development policies is essential if the many pilot initiatives underway are to evolve into coherent, durable pathways. Even in countries with large cultivated areas and marked climatic diversity—where soil regeneration has been incorporated into soil-health programmes, carbon-management strategies, and agri-food system stability plans—adoption remains uneven. In the absence of adequate economic incentives, such as targeted subsidies, tax relief, or transition funds capable of supporting uptake, particularly among smallholders, progress tends to be selective.^[71] These instruments are effective only when accompanied by qualified technical assistance, continuous advisory services, and more inclusive access to credit.^[72] Robust cooperative networks and specialised advisory systems help reduce technical uncertainty and disseminate context-appropriate management practices.

Another area of intervention concerns public–private partnerships, which in several contexts have shown potential in disseminating regenerative practices. Experiences in East Africa show that, when grounded in clearly defined objectives, responsibilities, and evaluation metrics, such partnerships can open space for innovation along value chains, broaden access to technology, and produce measurable improvements in farm incomes.^[73],[74] Their effectiveness, however, depends on public institutions’ capacity to define transparency standards, guarantee inclusive mechanisms, and monitor distributional effects, thereby preventing benefits from being captured by actors with greater bargaining power.

Case Study: Pollica, Italy

The case of Pollica (Cilento, Campania, Italy) gives an empirical vantage point from which to analyse the extent to which the regeneration of agri-food systems can be integrated into a broader territorial project, while acknowledging the constraints that characterise initiatives still in the consolidation phase.^[75] It is important to outline that this case does not constitute a finished model, nor a solution devoid of trade-offs vis-à-vis other agricultural paradigms. Instead, it represents a place-based experiment in which ecological, social, and economic objectives are pursued through institutional configurations and operational practices that are progressively adapted to local conditions.

This perspective helps avoid a prescriptive narrative of regenerative agriculture and makes explicit its main trade-offs: longer transition times compared with intensive models; possible yield reductions in the initial phase; the need for short supply chains or territorial valorisation tools to ensure economic viability; and the risk that the regenerative narrative may be captured by industrial actors, particularly within certification systems.^[76],[77] The conceptual framework guiding the Cilento experiment weaves together the agro-cultural heritage of the Mediterranean Diet with perspectives drawn from One Health, positioning regenerative agriculture within a broader territorial architecture that connects food, landscape, community practices, and educational pathways.

In Pollica, the regeneration project has taken shape through interventions touching both agronomic processes—conservation soil management, crop rotations, and the first agroforestry trials—and the revitalisation of rural landscapes, commons, and local community networks, carried forward with support from the Paideia Campus of the Future Food Institute.^[g],[78] Training activities aimed at producers, schools, and tourism operators have strengthened the socio-cultural dimension of the project, but its implementation has also highlighted critical elements: the need for initial investment that is not always sustainable for small farms; dependence on external resources and uneven administrative capacities; the fragility of local economic networks; and the lack of shared metrics for measuring impacts. The result is a model that generates notable territorial spillovers but requires appropriate institutional and financial conditions to become stable over the medium term.

Preliminary outcomes have led to the definition of the South Cilento Coastal Masterplan, an inter-municipal platform that extends the original vision to other territories in the area. The masterplan embeds regenerative food systems within spatial planning, landscape protection strategies, biodiversity management, and rural development, bringing together interventions in land use, mobility, rural infrastructure, eco-educational tourism, and training within a single framework. Its distinctive element lies in the effort to build a multi-level governance structure that brings together producers, local administrations, research institutions, and cultural actors within shared co-design processes. In doing so, it moves beyond traditional sectoral divisions and sketches a form of territorial planning in which soil policies are comprehended as an integral component of broader socio-economic dynamics.^[79]

At this stage, implementation and monitoring are crucial to assessing whether, and under what conditions, a process of territorial regeneration can be consolidated over time. The Cilento experience shows that strategic design alone is not sufficient: it must be accompanied by tools capable of documenting effects and guiding progressive adaptations of the model. In the short term, regional Living Labs have provided an operational framework for agricultural experimentation, adaptive learning, and stakeholder engagement, enabling farmers, researchers, and administrations to assess in situ the coherence of practices with local pedo-climatic specificities and socio-economic dynamics.^[80] As soil scientist, Johan Bouma observes, these instruments—when coupled with performance thresholds linked to ecosystem services—can assume a genuine governance role, and can guide rural transformation through verifiable criteria, and encourage more informed forms of stakeholder participation.^[81]

However, over the longer term, consolidating this trajectory calls for more structured monitoring tools built around multidimensional indicators capable of capturing adopted practices, soil quality, biodiversity, and carbon dynamics.^[82] The adoption of shared measurement, reporting, and verification (MMRV) procedures is therefore a necessary condition for ensuring transparency and credibility, particularly in contexts marked by high institutional heterogeneity. National protocols, co-defined by the scientific community and farmers’ organisations, can enhance comparability across initiatives; and, similarly, international cooperation platforms—including the EU Soil Mission and the FAO networks dedicated to agroecology—can contribute to methodological alignment, reduce duplication, and facilitate faster circulation of innovation.^[83] For such tools to generate measurable territorial effects, however, indicators and methodologies must be effectively integrated into support policies. Subsidies, certification schemes, and value-chain standards should incorporate explicit regenerative criteria—relating, for instance, to soil health or ecosystem services—to create coherent, long-term incentives for farms. But even the most sophisticated territorial initiatives, if not embedded within such an integrated framework, risk remaining isolated experiments, reliant on external resources and lacking the institutional conditions required to guarantee continuity, scalability, and long-term stability.

Building on the Cilento experience, the Future Food Institute launched “RegenerAction: Building Resilient Communities” in 2025, an initiative under the EIT Impact Funding Framework that seeks to develop a scalable blueprint for regenerating marginal European territories.^[84] The project is grounded in the principles of Prosperity Thinking and the Integral Ecological Regeneration Model, already tested through the “Pollica 2050 – Mediterranean Living Lab” pathway, and is structured as a co-creation process involving local communities, public institutions, businesses, civil-society organisations, and knowledge systems.^[85]

RegenerAction aims to transform marginal areas into territorial laboratories through three pilot sites across Europe, characterised by active local networks engaged in socio-ecological regeneration and by the capacity to collaborate with universities, research centres, and organisations specialising in agricultural transition. Planned activities^[h] will be accompanied by monitoring processes and independent evaluations of the model’s effectiveness.^[86] The blueprint, made available in open-access form, provides criteria and methodologies that can be adapted to different pedo-climatic and socio-economic contexts without presupposing a uniform replication of the Pollica case. Instead, it identifies a set of operational principles to be translated and adapted according to territorial specificities. In this sense, RegenerAction is less a diffusion-policy programme than an iterative process of institutional learning, geared towards testing under what conditions regenerative processes can generate measurable effects and what structural constraints—political, social, economic—condition their effectiveness.

The case study thus helps delineate the role soil regeneration can play in contemporary territorial policies. Preliminary results indicate that, when embedded in stable institutional strategies and supported by effective collaboration among public actors, producers, researchers, and civil society, regeneration can contribute to upgrading fragile agroecological systems and constructing more diversified local economies.^[87]At the same time, the experience confirms significant limitations: effectiveness depends on conditions that are unevenly distributed, requires administrative capacities not always available in marginal territories, and entails risks linked to the concentration of value or dependence on external support networks.

Conclusion

Available evidence indicates that regenerative agriculture can improve soil ecological functioning, increase biodiversity, and enhance the adaptive capacity of agricultural systems.

However, such results cannot be treated as uniformly replicable. Their effectiveness is shaped by institutional, economic, and social conditions that differ markedly across territories, exposing the transition to high initial costs, lower yields in the early phases, and possible asymmetries within certification processes. A clearer conceptual and regulatory framework is essential to prevent overly expansive uses of the term “regenerative” and to ensure that practices remain comparable.^[88] Alignment among monitoring systems, MMRV metrics, and agricultural policy instruments can help reduce uncertainty and risk for farmers, particularly when the economic sustainability of the transition remains fragile.^[89],[90]

The experiences of Pollica and RegenerAction suggest that regenerative processes are more effective when embedded in stable territorial architectures grounded in collaboration among local communities, institutions, research, and economic actors; they also highlight that such processes require administrative capacities, political continuity, and medium-term financial tools that are not uniformly available in marginal territories. Looking ahead, wider diffusion of place-based models will depend on the gradual institutionalisation of practices, the consolidation of evaluation systems, and the presence of governance mechanisms able to reconcile ecological goals, economic viability, and social inclusion. Regeneration, thus, is less a template to be replicated than a framework through which to examine the conditions, limits, and possibilities of transforming contemporary agricultural and territorial systems.

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Alessio Corti is an agroecologist and gastronome and Head of Regenerative Transition at the Future Food Institute.

Sara Roversi is the Founder of the Future Food Institute and Director of the Executive Master Program in Food Innovation and Regeneration at Bologna Business School.

Shoba Suri is a Senior Fellow with the Health Initiative at Observer Research Foundation.

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All views expressed in this publication are solely those of the authors, and do not represent the Observer Research Foundation, either in its entirety or its officials and personnel.

Endnotes

• Healthcare
• Climate, Food and Environment
• Agriculture
• India
• biodiversity
• carbon sequestration
• climate change mitigation
• Common Agricultural Policy
• EU Green Deal
• Farm to Fork Strategy
• global food security
• regenerative agriculture
• soil degradation
• soil health
• sustainable agriculture

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