ECONOMIC MODEL OF REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE AND FACTORS OF AGRI-FOOD SYSTEM CHANGE

Daniela TRIFAN¹, George TOADER^1,2, Cătălin-Ioan ENEA³, Alin-Ionel GHIORGHE¹, Emanuela LUNGU¹, Ele­na-Vio­le­ta TOADER⁴, Leonard ILIE²

1 BRĂILA RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT STATION FOR AGRICULTURE
2 FACULTY OF AGRICULTURE. UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE AND VETERINARY MEDICINE OF BUCHAREST
3 SUCEAVA RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT STATION FOR AGRICULTURE
4 FACULTY OF AGRIFOOD AND ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS. BUCHAREST UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMIC STUDIES
Cor­re­spond­ing author e‑mail: toadergeorge92@gmail.com

Abstract: The basis of regen­er­a­tive agri­cul­ture is rep­re­sent­ed by its main ele­ment, name­ly the soil. Ensur­ing good soil health will lead to many ben­e­fi­cial effects on agri­cul­tur­al ecosys­tems. Among the main ben­e­fi­cial effects of soil health, we can list the man­age­ment of ground­wa­ter resources and irri­ga­tion sys­tems at large agro-zootech­ni­cal farms, recy­cling of nutri­ents from and to the soil sur­face with the help of green, envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly fer­til­iz­ers and agroe­cosys­tems, max­i­miz­ing crop yields, sus­tain­abil­i­ty of crops, soil and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty per hectare, sus­tain­abil­i­ty of agri-food and live­stock farms. The fact that through regen­er­a­tive agri­cul­ture, organ­ic car­bon in the soil struc­ture can be exploit­ed in order to max­i­mize agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and restore soil struc­ture, regen­er­a­tive agri­cul­ture focus­es main­ly on restor­ing soils that have suf­fered great degra­da­tion due to their acid­i­fi­ca­tion by using large amounts of pes­ti­cides and chem­i­cal fer­til­iz­er prod­ucts. This arti­cle aims to present the eco­nom­ic prin­ci­ples and meth­ods of regen­er­a­tive agri­cul­ture so that these process­es com­bined into a uni­tary whole lead to the restora­tion of soil organ­ic mat­ter nat­u­ral­ly, the prin­ci­ples of regen­er­a­tive agri­cul­ture prac­ti­tion­ers being that nature can reg­u­late auto­mat­i­cal­ly the imbal­ances iden­ti­fied in nature. The less min­i­mal the inter­ven­tions on the soil, the less the residues from agri­cul­ture (reduc­tions result­ing from the activ­i­ty of fer­til­iza­tion and plant pro­tec­tion) will be min­i­mal, the prod­ucts used will present a min­i­mum inva­sive­ness, which will lead to the accel­er­a­tion of the recov­ery process­es. soil, to bal­ance the elec­trolyte bal­ance of the soil and, implic­it­ly, to devel­op the root sys­tem of plants so as to ensure a suf­fi­cient amount of min­er­al ele­ments in the soil, in order to max­i­mize agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion.
Key­words: organ­ic farm­ing, regen­er­a­tive agri­cul­ture, farm prof­itabil­i­ty, food sys­tem, pol­i­cy mak­ers.
JEL clas­si­fi­ca­tion: Q01, Q34, Q57,