Regenerative agriculture needs new skill sets

In my experience, to do this well, there are two types of skills required:

1. Technical 
2. Change management

And I’m going to tell you a bit more about what I mean.

Firstly, technical skills are about identifying:

• What needs to change?
• What new principles/practices do I need to learn?
• What will work and, crucially, what will not?
• What mix do I need, and how do I make it grow?

For these, there are great courses, such as the BASIS Certificate in Sustainable Land Management course at the Allerton Project. FarmEd also does a lot of great courses, as do BASIS agronomy and Groundswell is a brilliant place to share ideas. Visiting other farmers always helps too.

So there is stuff out there, but it can be a bit patchy. But regen ag is patchy - how it works varies and a lot does have to be learnt through trial and error. Providing a regimented blueprint of training, therefore, would be fruitless.

The industry needs more training

But we do need more of this training, and it needs to be more accessible, more affordable, and more interesting and imaginative. People learn by seeing, hearing, reading, and doing; farmers are practical people. So that is a big part of our training courses at the Allerton Project.

The mechanics of courses and their delivery are also very important. Is it effective for one person from a farm to go on a course, for example, or do we need more tailored sessions with whole farm teams to get everyone interested and on board? In terms of the technical, you are only as good as everyone on the ground. 

Change management requires its own skills too

Regen ag isn’t about tweaking a system. It can be a fundamental change in what you are doing and why you’re doing it. It's often a change in values and ethics. 

In lots of industries, if you want that done, you hire a new person to do it. They are often from outside the business to get a fresh perspective. But in this industry, we're asking farmers to continue doing their day job and undertake a fundamental change management project. 

Change management requires very different skills to develop, thinking laterally and taking risks. So, we need more business coaching, mentoring, immersive courses, and networks for this. 

Good range of courses available to support industry

Again, these exist; the Worshipful Company of Farmers has some brilliant courses and supports people through Cranfield business courses too. The Institute of Agricultural Management has business and leadership courses too. Having networks of advisers committed to the same ideals helps share the emotional risk (albeit not the financial one!) too, which is important. 

These courses only work if you use them and constantly apply their learnings to your business. So if we can come up with mechanisms and programmes that combine the technical and change management skills required over a prolonged period, I think you could see real change pretty quickly. 

So that's what I'm always thinking about when I’m designing training courses, running projects, and working with farmers.