How regenerative agriculture can foster peacebuilding in conflict areas

In the dry valley between the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and the Serranía del Perijá mountain ranges, in northern Colombia, former combatants in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia guerilla group, or FARC, are leading a surprising new revolution: regenerative agriculture.

The region was once plagued by violence between antagonistic groups, including FARC, and is currently under pressure from both climate crisis and deforestation. But through an agricultural cooperative called COOMPAZCOL, former FARC members are forming alliances with the community members who were once threatened or endangered by their operations. Linking intercropped feed production with free range chicken egg production, which are also looped back into the intercropping operation through natural fertilizer production, the cooperative is striving towards a sustainable, circular system of producing food. Although it may sound counterintuitive, the former FARC members’ communist roots, with their commitment to militant transparency and an equitable division of labor, are what make them so well-suited to an agricultural cooperative model—so much so that community members are consulting with them as they form their own cooperatives.

The project is an example of how regenerative agriculture can be used for peace and reconciliation, as well as environmental restoration.

With the support of a participatory peace organization called PASO Colombia, COOMPAZCOL was founded on the idea that the former combatants’ new lives in peace should reflect their concern for care for their land. Many members of COOMPAZCOL are from the Wayuu and other indigenous communities, as almost half of La Guajira Department identify as indigenous. In forming their cooperative model, the principles of sustainability and collective, shared action came naturally due to these roots—as well as the foundational communal ideology of FARC. Integrating surrounding community members was a simultaneous step toward reconciliation and collective bargaining power: an initially tentative, but so far enduring, win-win.

Globally, conflict and environmental risks are simultaneously on the rise—with one often exacerbating the other. Environmental stresses from extreme weather events like drought and floods and displacement caused by regional conflicts are increasingly challenging people’s ability to make a living and undermining human security. More than 20 million people are displaced by environmental threats annually; another five million (at least) are displaced by conflict. Agricultural productivity and environmental quality are decreasing in most areas of the world that people inhabit. Evaluating if—and subsequently how and under what conditions—these challenges can be simultaneously addressed is a critical area of research. Evidence of regenerative production as an intentional vehicle for peacebuilding in conflict contexts is scant, but early indications suggest it might at least begin to meet that tall order.

The promise or value proposition of regenerative production is that through managed use, the quality of an ecosystem is promoted rather than degraded as agricultural goods are produced—the value of the land regenerated rather than extracted. Often this entails restoring depleted soil. Sometimes this can mean removing toxic substances, like mercury from artisanal mining—a process called phytoremediation. Such systems might also include silvopasture (integrating ruminants with an agro-forestry system), intercropping (planting a diversity of calorie-producing, nutrient-sequestering, or other resource-producing flora interspersed together), or permaculture (a holistic approach to agriculture production design that mimics natural systems while amplifying net resource output for cultivation). Production is supposed to create value in the land, especially in the soil, while promoting ecosystem vitality through biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and other potential environmental services.

There is no one-size fits all model for regenerative production. And it is unclear if, how, and under what conditions regenerative peacebuilding might work. To research the possibilities of regenerative peacebuilding in pre-, ongoing, and post-conflict contexts, I am collaboratively engaged in three empirical research projects to test and parse this potentially avant-garde intervention—studying what works, what does not, why, and what lessons can be taken and applied elsewhere.

In the Madre de Dios river valley of Peru, where toxic environmental degradation and climate risks intersect with emerging land disputes involving mining and narcotics production, the Amazonian Scientific Innovation Center is using regenerative agroforestry to remove toxins, regenerating soil and forests while also providing enduring livelihoods. In La Guajira, regenerative production has centered on developing a regenerative model of egg production that links animal feed, natural fertilizer, and food production (the eggs) in a process that is simultaneously restoring soil and land in the process.

Emerging models look different in other contexts. In Luwero District of Uganda, one of the most violent areas in the Ugandan conflict (1986-1994) but also an area facing persistent climate-related stresses, the Bethany Land Institute is training so-called “Caretakers” in regenerative agroforestry as a way to earn a living while simultaneously reconnecting with and regenerating the land. Many of the Caretakers are young people whose families were displaced in the conflict. But does it work? And why are these groups, and not everyone, doing this?

Developing regenerative production systems is not easy. It requires deep knowledge of local ecologies—not to mention product demand and supply chains to bring items to market. In La Guajira, Madre de Dios, and at the Bethany Land Institute, technical assistance is key. In each case there is a local, highly knowledgeable technical institution providing support to producers. Support ranges from soil analysis to guide intercropping selections to best practices development through test plots and knowledge-sharing platforms.

Beyond technical support for production, producers and communities alike have reported that such interactions have also opened opportunities for communication, engagement, and trust building, fostering cohesion and a sense of shared mission. In each of these three extant cases, producers are voluntarily making decisions that reduce their total potential revenue but create a different form of value, e.g., reducing the total income producing tree count on a plot to integrate other native species, and other strategies guided by values other than economic gain. In Madre de Dios, for example, regenerative producers are voluntarily setting aside productive land so that it can develop into secondary forest growth.

But in the long run can these shared values about the environment and community sustain ecological, economic, and social needs in conflict-affected areas? The answer to this question is unclear, primarily because the empirical evidence base on which to test such questions does not exist.

So why are producers engaging in regenerative agriculture experiments? For these types of long-term experiments to be successful, there needs to be evaluation that establishes the probabilities of failure and success of sustainability across all three essential pillars—ecological, economic, and social. Work is underway in each case to assess outcomes of current processes and to adapt and try new interventions. In two of the three cases—Uganda and Colombia—donor dollars have been the backstop initiating and supporting production to date, with the respective groups moving toward being wholly revenue rather than grant funded.

There are also important risks brought about by regenerative production. First, if the promise holds true and value is added to the land, this can potentially create competition—and conflict—for the land. At the Bethany Land Institute, this is exactly what is happening at their first site, after growing a forest that others now are attempting to lay claim to. Thus, land-tenure systems and other related issues, such as regulation and permit enforcement, become even more essential.

And again, this is a long-term bet. Value builds over time. For increasingly displaced persons or people without “ownership” of the land—however they define it—conventional production systems that extract from ecosystems—such as charcoaling forests or monocropping commodities—still may prove the best path for meeting their basic needs.

There have been numerous cases of extractive practices masquerading as regenerative, though not in the context of peacebuilding. As a result, regenerative production can seem like a pipe dream to many, and there is no decisive empirical evidence to say otherwise as yet. But early signs from these three cases signal potential. And if the longitudinal data bears this out—that these practices can simultaneously be a vehicle for resolving environmental and social ills while also meeting economic needs—it could be one of the most potent tools in our increasingly conflicted and environmentally risky world.