Project Goals

Our project goals are to intensify agricultural production in an environmentally sustainable way to enhance agronomic, economic, and community resiliency in the Southern Great Plains.

Successfully integrating regenerative agricultural practices to increase carbon sequestration, reduce green house gas emissions, mitigate climate change impacts, diversify producer income streams, conserve scarce water, provide training on emerging technologies, and enhance rural communities are all desired outcomes of this project.

Implementing regenerative agricultural practices in semi-arid regions IS possible. However, optimization of these practices is needed. For this to happen in a successful and applicable way, we are invested in long-term research to help accomplish our goals.

“Regenerative agriculture implies more than just sustaining something but rather an active rebuilding or regeneration of existing systems towards full health. It also implies an open-ended process of ongoing improvement and positive transformation.”

— Charles Massy

To obtain our overarching goals and manage our success, project objectives have been divided into short-, medium-, and long-term goals that started in 2021.

Short-term goals (1-2 years):

  1. Evaluate regenerative agricultural practices across varying soil textures and climate gradients to determine yield-limiting factors and optimize management practices for intensification.

  2. Identify barriers to adoption of regenerative agricultural practices and engage agricultural stakeholders in educational and research activities to assist in overcoming these barriers.

  3. Engage opinion leaders and supporters of regenerative agriculture to allow localized experience to increase the likelihood of adoption.

  4. Implement research and demonstrations across the SGP to quantify the benefits of regenerative practices and diversifying farm incomes.

  5. Establish a Master Soil Steward Program across the SGP with curriculum aimed at educating producers on regionally optimized regenerative agricultural management strategies.

Medium-term goals (3-5 years):

  1. Implement experiments aimed at optimizing regenerative practices in the SGP that are designed based on yield limiting factors identified in short-term goal #1.

  2. Evaluate regenerative agricultural practices using experimental data, and historical and future climate data to assess the long-term effects on soil health, water capture, GHG emissions, watershed-scale processes, and climate change adaptation.

  3. Establish region-specific undergraduate and graduate courses in Regenerative Agriculture at Oklahoma State University, Texas A&M University, Texas Tech University, and West Texas A&M University utilizing data collected from this research.

Long-term goals (5-15+ years):

  1. Increase agricultural productivity, profitability, resiliency to climate change, ecosystem benefits, and sustainability in the SGP via increased adoption of regenerative agricultural practices through recommendations provided through our research, education, and outreach.

  2. Support needed changes to cost-share program policies regarding the incorporation of livestock into regenerative agricultural systems involving cover crops.