The Seeding Regenerative Agriculture (SRA) project, launched and currently administered by Cruces Creatives, makes sustainable and regenerative agriculture easier to practice by coordinating peer-to-peer networking and knowledge-sharing among producers, as well as a range of support services.
This work is supported through generous funding from the Santa Fe Community Foundation, the New Mexico Foundation, and the McCune Charitable Foundation.
By focusing its efforts around concentrated geographic areas and social networks, called Seed Groups, SRA shifts market practices, within concentrated sectors of the agricultural system, toward a new normal of regenerative agriculture. By replicating and expanding Seed Groups, SRA intends to move the agricultural sector toward a tipping point beyond which regenerative agriculture becomes a new normal.
The mission of the Seeding Regenerative Agriculture (SRA) project is to promote agricultural practices that both protect the environment and work economically. SRA works especially in the fields of sustainable and regenerative agriculture, for which we use the following definitions:
(from U.S. Code Title 7, Section 3103): “an integrated system of plant and animal production practices having a site-specific application that will over the long-term:
An interconnected set of agricultural principles that help restore agro-ecosystems “from the ground up” by (re)establishing healthy soil microbial communities, upon which healthy agro-ecosystems are built. General principles for regenerative agriculture include
In brief, regenerative agriculture is a subcategory of sustainable agriculture that pays special attention to soil health.
In both sustainable and regenerative agriculture, specific practices will depend on local environmental conditions. After all, environmentally friendly practices need to take the environment into account. Consequently, although general principles for sustainable and regenerative agriculture may apply over very broad geographic areas, specific practices often need to be adapted to the conditions within specific local environments.
At the tactical level, the SRA employs a two-pronged approach:
Our name for long-term, geographically concentrated cohorts of producers who are interested in sustainable and regenerative agriculture and who cooperate for peer-to-peer networking, knowledge sharing, and easy connections to a wide range of support services provided by SRA partners.
that create a favorable local environment for sustainable and regenerative producers. Drawing on a network of a dozen partner organizations (and growing), SRA coordinates scientific research, technology development, policy improvements, market development, and a range of professional services for producers, systematically addressing obstacles to the widespread adoption of sustainable and regenerative agricultural practices.
Cumulatively, our tactical approach systematically addresses obstacles to the widespread adoption of sustainable and regenerative agriculture, making it possible for thriving, local models of sustainable and regenerative agriculture to develop within Seed Groups.