Regen10 Initiative

Lead Organization:

Meridian Institute

Partner Organizations:

Regen10 Secretariat and its official partners 1000 Landscapes for 1 Billion People, Global Alliance for the Future of Food, IKEA Foundation, IUCN, Leaders’ Quest, Sustainable Food Trust, Systemiq, Food and Land Use Coalition, Rockefeller Foundation, WBCSD, and World Farmers’ Organization

Exploring partnerships with Indigenous Partnership for Agrobiodiversity and Food Sovereignty (TIP), Mujeres Líderes Territoriales de Mesoamérica (CLTM), and Asian Farmers Association for Sustainable Rural Development, among others

Frameworks workstream overseen by World Resources Institute: Systemiq; Food and Land Use Coalition at World Resources Institute (FOLU); Global Farm Metric; Sustainable Food Trust; World Farmers’ Organization; One Planet Business for Biodiversity at World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD); and IUCN

Landscapes workstream overseen by Systemiq: Regenerative Food Systems at IUCN, Indigenous Peoples organizations, Leaders’ Quest, and World Farmers’ Organization

Secretariat and global engagement: Global Alliance for the Future of Food, Blakeney Group, and World Farmers’ Organization

Duration:

11/2023—11/2025

Overview:

In recent decades, the focus on yields and productivity has led to an increase in high input practices geared toward producing plentiful, cheap food globally. However, overuse of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, concentrated animal feeding processes, heavy irrigation, intensive tillage, and concentrated monoculture production are damaging agroecological systems. Soil degradation, water pollution, and loss of pollinators and biodiversity threaten productivity and farmer incomes. 

Global interest is growing in the potential of agroecological and regenerative approaches to strengthen food systems, address climate and nature emergencies, and create more inclusive societies. But despite increasing popularity, there is a lack of a shared vision and narrative. Focusing on practices to define regenerative agriculture can lead to unintended consequences and fragmented data collection and reporting across environment, climate, and social impacts, causing trade-offs and creating barriers to scale. Farmers and Indigenous experiences are excluded from the conversation, resulting in unbalanced power dynamics and missed opportunities. 

Many agrifood businesses have committed to responsible, sustainable, and regenerative supply chains as part of their corporate strategies. In some countries, farmers are asked to report against different frameworks and metrics, an often costly, intensive task that farmers cannot assume without greater support from upstream buyers and governments. Furthermore, the lack of definition and misalignment around practices and what constitutes “regenerative” create the risk of greenwashing. 

Scaling agroecological and regenerative approaches requires highly context-specific approaches, substantial technical and financial assistance, and a policy-enabling environment. Public, philanthropic, and private finance mechanisms are needed to channel finance at scale. In addition, a policy-enabling environment needs to align with the goal of transforming food systems to deliver positive outcomes for people, nature, and climate.

Regen10 is a global, multi-stakeholder collaborative platform that aims to bring together diverse stakeholders and rights holders to identify and overcome these challenges. To learn from landscapes, Regen10 aims to build on and amplify existing efforts, working closely with farmers and Indigenous peoples organizations, and establishing a “network of networks” of landscape initiatives and implementation partners, including 1000 Landscapes, Commonlands, FOLU, IDH, Rainforest Alliance, Technoserve, TNC, WWF, and others.  

Grant Aims:

The overall goal is to develop a holistic outcomes framework that addresses financial challenges and helps shape Pillar 2 (non-state actors) of the COP28 Presidency focused on regenerative landscapes, resulting in a robust governance, program, and financial management system to underpin an ambitious global agenda. Regen10 partners are working to build agreement among diverse groups to both contribute to and use the outputs from the frameworks and landscapes workstream.  

Specifically, the project aims to:

  • Build on and connect with other relevant initiatives, including the Agroecological Principles developed by the High-Level Panel of Experts to the Committee on Food Security, Global Farm Metric, Sustainable Agriculture Initiative, OP2B, and Commonlands’ 4 Returns Framework. 
  • Closely follow development of the aligned philanthropic-led Regenerative Acceleration Finance initiative (RAFT) that will channel funds toward high-priority landscape transition opportunities. 
  • Work with the Climate Champions on Pillar 2 of the COP28 Presidency.

Outputs and Outcomes:

Outputs: 

  • Establishment of the Regen10 Data and Learning Engine, mapping and recruiting a landscape portfolio, and consolidation of insights from landscapes work to shape enabling environments for scaling 
  • Development of food system archetypes to identify gaps and inform landscape portfolio selection to accelerate transformation of half of world’s food production and development of transition pathways 
  • Consolidated insights within resulting report to include qualitative data to produce transition hypotheses that engage at least five landscape examples
  • Growing group of partners, advisory group, and experts’ network built into an inclusive global movement toward a regenerative food system closely analyzed through robust monitoring, evaluation, and learning
  • Key consultations, bilaterals, and side events focused on Regen10’s objectives and centering the voices of farmers, Indigenous peoples, and frontline communities designed and implemented in coordination with global, high-level sessions such as UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP) and other significant regional summits

Outcomes: 

  • Three workstreams contributing structure, evidence, and critical mass of voices that can bring Regen10’s ambitious goal (half of the world’s food produced in a way that provides positive outcomes for people, nature, and climate, including affordable nutritious food for 10 billion people) to fruition by 2030
  • Framework assessing regenerative practices across environmental, social, and economic metrics within analytical report; consensus around principles and outcomes framework tested and built through drafts; made available to farmers across geographies and commodities to test, assessing practices and reporting against stated metrics 
  • Companies, financial institutions, and policymakers using framework to integrate farm- and landscape-level outcomes and metrics into decision-making processes
  • Principles on regenerative agriculture that guide Regen10’s work and align its mission, diversity, and inclusion goals under continuous iteration throughout project’s duration