Organic is Regenerative

The term regenerative continues to gain traction in the farming and food industries, and is now the focus of the USDA’s $700 million Regenerative Pilot Program: a new priority program operating within EQIP and CSP announced by Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins in December of 2025. Organic farming shares many of the same goals as regenerative agriculture, but organic is a verifiable legal standard that can be relied upon to create more regenerative farming systems. It has a clear and accepted legal definition that holds farmers, food producers, and the entire supply chain accountable to sustainable practices, letting consumers know what they are supporting with their food purchases. Simply put, organic is the original climate-smart agriculture.

Organic systems rely on practices that work with natural cycles to build healthy soils, biodiversity, retain water, store carbon, and build resiliency. The practices emphasized in the Regenerative Pilot Program include those which organic farmers are already required to use for organic certification, such as crop rotation, keeping the soil covered, nutrient management, and pest management. However, certified organic farms continue to account for only a very small percentage of those receiving financial support through EQIP and CSP, even though they are already succeeding in using regenerative practices. 

In part two of this blog post series, we will explore organic producer participation in EQIP and CSP from 2018 to 2025, the most commonly used conservation practices, and how the USDA can invest more in organic producers and help them be a greater part of these federal programs.