Tag Archive for: Press Release

Regeneration International Second General Assembly Addresses State of the Regeneration Movement

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 22, 2017

English: Katherine Paul, 207.653 3090, Katherine@regenerationinternational.org

Spanish: Ercilia Sahores, +52 (55) 6257 7901, ercilia@regenerationinternational.org

SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE, Mexico – About 105 experts in soil, water and land management, agriculture, media and campaign strategy assembled today in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, for a three-day international conference on how to scale up organic and regenerative agriculture, land management and livestock grazing to address global warming, global food insecurity and public health.

Representatives from 21 countries are attending the three-day strategy meeting organized by Regeneration International (RI), a project of the Organic Consumers Association (OCA).

The conference is being held at OCA’s Vía Orgánica teaching farm and conference center. It is RI’s first global strategy meeting since the organization’s initial launch in June 2015, in Costa Rica.

“We are in the terminal phase of a degenerative food and farming system which forms the underlying basis for war, poverty, poor health and food insecurity,” said Ronnie Cummins, OCA’s international director and a member of the RI steering committee. “The hundreds of millions of small-scale farmers and herders around the world have the power to turn things around. They need our support to scale up regenerative farming and land-management practices that will draw down and sequester carbon, produce abundant, nutrient-dense food and regenerate local economies.”

“This is a gathering about the future of the world, pure and simple, said Larry Kopald, co-founder of The Carbon Underground, a founding partner of RI. “If we don’t quickly draw down carbon and restore our soil, we will lose the chance to keep feeding the planet and to deal with climate change.”

Andre Leu, president of IFOAM International and an RI steering committee member said: “This is the beginning of one of the fastest-growing movements in the world. The word ‘regeneration’ is resonating. We have the science now to scale up regenerative farming. We have the responsibility to scale it up. If we don’t, we face a real threat of extinction by the end of this century.”

Participants of the General Assembly will attend sessions on how to fund and scale up the Regeneration Movement, how to support the France’s 4/1000 Initiative: Soils for Food Security and Climate, and how to build a grassroots movement around regenerative food, farming and climate.

Regeneration International is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization building a global network of farmers, scientists, businesses, activists, educators, journalists, governments and consumers who will promote and put into practice regenerative agriculture and land-use practices that: provide abundant, nutritious food; revive local economies; rebuild soil fertility and biodiversity; and restore climate stability by returning carbon to the soil, through the natural process of photosynthesis.

Regeneration International and Open Team Announce Micro-Grant Competition in Conjunction with Launch of Online Platform to Connect Regeneration Movement Stakeholders

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Regeneration International Will Award Five Micro-Grants to Innovative Regeneration Projects

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 15, 2016

Contact:
U.S.: Katherine Paul, katherine@organicconsumers.org, 207-653-3090
Mexico, Latin America: Ercilia Sahores, ercilia@regenerationinternational.org, (55) 6257 7901

MARRAKESH–Regeneration International (RI) and Open Team, in partnership with 17 organizations, today launched The Regeneration Hub (RHub) at the COP22 Climate Summit. RHub is an interactive online platform that connects project holders, individuals, funders and communities focused on regenerative agriculture and land-use projects and other related concepts that address multiple global challenges, including climate change and food security.

In conjunction with the RHub launch, RI and Open Team announced a competition for five micro-grants of US$1000 each to be awarded to five innovative regeneration projects. RI, a project of the US-based Organic Consumers Association, will fund the micro-grants.  The RI Steering Committee will evaluate the projects and announce the winners in January 2017.

“There are regenerative solutions all around us,” said Ronnie Cummins, OCA’s international director and member of the RI steering committee. “But people are working in silos. We need to map out and connect the global regeneration movement in order to accelerate the exchange of best practices and the sharing of knowledge and resources on a global scale.”

The RHub aims to accelerate adoption and development of scalable and replicable regenerative projects across the globe by inspiring and facilitating collaboration between project holders, individuals, funders and communities from the regenerative movement.

“This platform will scale the adoption of local regenerative solutions worldwide by facilitating the work of farmers and environmental entrepreneurs, in collaboration with experts, scientists, businesses, activists, educators, journalists, impact investors, policymakers and consumers, while inspiring an increasing number of individuals to join the global regenerative movement!” said Joanne Schante, co-founder of Open Team.

The RHub was conceived at the Paris Climate Summit in December 2015, where RI brought together 60 foodies, farmers, entrepreneurs, scientists and NGOs from around the world working on regeneration.

Watch this video to learn more:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyIIDYoA0jo

Sign up today: www.regenerationhub.co

Regeneration International, a project of the Organic Consumers Association, is building a global network of farmers, scientists, businesses, activists, educators, journalists, governments and consumers who will promote and put into practice regenerative agriculture and land-use practices that: provide abundant, nutritious food; revive local economies; rebuild soil fertility and biodiversity; and restore climate stability by returning carbon to the soil, through the natural process of photosynthesis.

OpenTeam manages O, a global platform that catalyzes concrete collaboration on a world scale, engaging change makers with all levels of expertise and projects to mutualize their efforts and experiences in order to develop local projects (global initiatives implemented by local stakeholders). This ScaleCamp is the first pilot of a series of forthcoming other such events which aim to continuously fuel global collaboration using O’s open source platform and ultimately shift the climate change paradigm through borderless collaboration.

Regenerative—Not ‘Climate-Smart’—Agriculture Needed to Feed the World and Cool the Planet

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 9, 2016

Regeneration International’s Ronnie Cummins Addresses ‘Climate-Smart’ Panel at COP22 Climate Summit

MARRAKECH—“World governments spend $486 billion a year to subsidize an industrial food and farming model that the United Nations estimates, contributes 43-57 percent of total man-made greenhouse gas emissions,” said Ronnie Cummins, international director of the Organic Consumers Association (OCA). “It’s time to stop subsidizing agricultural practices that contribute to global warming, and start subsidizing food, farming and land-use practices that restore the soil’s capacity to draw down and re-sequester excess carbon from the atmosphere and store it in the soil.”

Speaking to a panel hosted by the Social Innovation and Global Ethics Forum in conjunction with the COP22 Climate Summit, Cummins told participants that “Climate-Smart Agriculture” (CSA), is a clever term used to describe a limited approach to adapting to climate change and to addressing global food insecurity through agricultural practices that fail to meet the standard of regeneration.

“Scientists tell us that even if we achieve zero emissions tomorrow, the planet would continue to heat up for another thousand years,” Cummins said. “Our best hope to avert a climate disaster, restore public health and revitalize rural economies must include a plan that not only achieves zero emissions, but also draws down the billions of tons of excess carbon already in the atmosphere. That plan exists. It’s call regenerative agriculture, or agroecology.”

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Bank coined the term “Climate Smart Agriculture” at the 2010 Hague Conference on Food Security, Agriculture and Climate Change. The FAO floated the concept as a “triple win” for a type of agriculture that could reduce greenhouse gas emissions, help crops adapt to changing climate conditions, and increase yields.

Last year, more than 350 national and international civil society groups, including OCA and Regeneration International, a project of OCA, signed a letter urging decision-makers to reject what the groups called the “growing influence and agenda of so-called ‘Climate-Smart Agriculture’ (CSA) and the Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture (GACSA).” The groups criticized the lack of criteria for deciding what can or cannot be called “Climate Smart,” and pointed to the potential for agribusiness corporations that promote synthetic fertilizers, industrial meat production and large-scale industrial agriculture—big contributors to global warming—to co-opt the term.

In the U.S., fossil-fuel-intensive agribusiness corporations like Monsanto, who are members of the North American chapter of GASCA, claim to be practitioners of CSA.

Regeneration International has organized and/or is participating in numerous events at the COP22 Climate Summit in Marrakech, with a focus on regenerative agriculture and land-use as a critical strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and draw down excess carbon from the atmosphere.

Regeneration International, a project of the Organic Consumers Association, is building a global network of farmers, scientists, businesses, activists, educators, journalists, governments and consumers who will promote and put into practice regenerative agriculture and land-use practices that: provide abundant, nutritious food; revive local economies; rebuild soil fertility and biodiversity; and restore climate stability by returning carbon to the soil, through the natural process of photosynthesis.