Growing our Future: Scaling Regenerative Agriculture
Summary
In 2024, Forum for the Future (Forum) committed to enabling a systemic, urgent transition in the global food and agriculture system through three interconnected areas where it has expertise with a focus on India, the United Kingdom, and the United States. First, reframing food narratives: enabling changemakers to reshape narratives about food system goals and center social and ecological justice and regeneration. Second, scaling just and regenerative food supply: catalyzing market-level changes, shared visions, and new collaborations that unlock barriers to the regenerative transition. Third, reshaping local food systems to thrive and adapt: enabling diverse actors to reimagine and reshape rural and urban food systems for long-term resilience through a place-based approach. To pull all three levers, Forum has designed the “Growing our Future,” initiative to enable the transition to regenerative agriculture and convene ambitious businesses, producers, and others in accelerating a transition that restores nature and is socially just.
Approach
Forum for the Future (Forum) commits to “Growing our Future”, an international multi-stakeholder collaboration with an ambition to scale regenerative agriculture in the United States, United Kingdom, and India. Growing our Future (GoF) plays a unique role in each country’s food and agricultural systems, convening ambitious businesses, producers and others interested in accelerating a regenerative, socially just transition.
In the US, GoF will facilitate collaborative action via workshops and engagement with an expert independent Advisory Council; policy advocacy; and focused interventions to transform the cotton and dairy sectors. In the UK, it will support supply chain actors in the dairy, vegetable and orchard sectors to transform their approach to deliver sustainable products and host place-based activations, including in one major city. In India, GoF will support the government of Madhya Pradesh to shift policies and governance mechanisms, build capacity in the region for regenerative approaches, and motivate other states to follow suit.
GoF reflects Forum’s goal of supporting diverse changemakers to think differently, and to move from piecemeal, siloed actions to deep transformation and system change. One barrier to system change is that conflicting short-term interests and a lack of trust and collaboration make it hard for actors to develop a shared vision, pilot and scale new practices, and address shared challenges. Forum uses applied futures tools and participatory processes such as action learning to nurture trust, imagination and collective action. It also strives to shift power dynamics by amplifying lesser heard voices and advocating social equity.
This project reflects Forum’s global commitment to transforming food and agriculture systems by (1) reframing narratives, centering social and ecological justice and regeneration, (2) catalyzing market-level changes, shared visions and new collaborations that unlock barriers to the regenerative transition, and (3) reshaping local food systems to thrive and adapt and be resilient long-term.
Action Plan
2024
US: By Q3, Forum will convene industry players to scale a thriving managed dairy grazing sector. By Q4, it will launch a social outcomes working group.
UK: By Q3, Forum will establish a steering committee and explore pathways in dairy. By Q4, Forum will initiate workstreams in vegetables/ fresh produce and orchards, the basis of place-based work in 2026 – 2027.
India: By Q2, consultations and workshops will inform a governance, capacity development and appraisal framework. By Q3, Forum will support government partners to operationalize it and build capacity across ministries. By Q4, it will help to establish a coordination agency focused on 4 districts.
2025
US: In Q1, Forum will connect companies with grassroots coalitions to advance the Farm Bill. By Q3, it will publish case studies on regional food systems and by Q4, present findings on social outcomes.
UK: By Q2, Forum will initiate 2-3 place-based programs, including in one major city.
India: By Q1, Forum will support the government to guide the adoption of recommendations. By Q4, four-district level plans will be finalized.
2026
US: By Q2, Forum will launch a place-based initiative. By Q3, it will publish findings on regenerative cotton value networks.
UK: Place-based initiatives are running well, with potential to grow. By Q2, the city partnership is robust.
India: By Q2, 80% of farmers across 20 villages in Madhya Pradesh will demonstrate progress.
2027
US: By Q2, certifiers engaged in GoF will have gone beyond compliance towards social equity and GoF will activate a consumer-facing campaign. By Q4, more companies will work with farmers due to GoF convenings.
UK: By Q2, the city partnership will be scalable.
India: By Q2, Forum will support the government to design a replication and scale-up plan, beginning to implement it by Q4.
Background
Food is at the heart of many of the world’s environmental, social, and economic challenges. The issues – from soil health to public health to sustaining a growing population – are complex and cannot be solved in isolation. As it stands, the way we produce, consume and value food is pushing the planet and the systems we rely on beyond their limits. We need to transition to food systems that optimize health and nutritional outcomes while restoring the key ecosystems, farming livelihoods, and communities on which we depend.
One pathway is to transform our agricultural practices, in recognition of their central role and the harms caused by mainstream agriculture. These include greenhouse gas emissions; soil compaction, erosion, and loss of organic carbon; depletion of groundwater levels, eutrophication, and other water body contamination; increased desertification; biodiversity loss; precarious livelihoods; deepened social inequalities and poor and uneven social outcomes; and the loss and denigration of Indigenous ecological knowledge. Communities and ecosystems are increasingly vulnerable in the face of accelerating climate change.
A socially just and ecologically safe transition is needed to enable the emergence of a food system fit for a radically different future, one that balances health and nutritional outcomes while restoring natural ecosystems and enabling sustainable livelihoods for farmers. This transition must be underpinned by climate mitigation and adaptation and transforming key supply chains that deliver from plant to plate.
Though regenerative practices have the potential for positive impact, the transition is fractured, with many stakeholders, and is at risk of being shallow. Some solutions may fail to tackle root causes and rewire the system in the ways we need. To counteract this risk, the transition needs to be deep, involving all players, and it must be farmer-centered and advance social equity as well as build environmental resilience.
Progress Update
Partnership Opportunities
Forum for the Future would especially welcome the opportunity to network with new partners, in particular, prospective funders, and to build project and brand awareness in collaboration with media-savvy organizations. Forum is seeking financial support from diverse sources, including businesses (it primarily works with large multinational corporations) , corporate foundations, and other philanthropic organizations. Forum would appreciate the opportunity to make new connections with media and news outlets; refine its outputs and impact stories through consultation with branding and marketing experts (particularly ones familiar with the US market) ; and support with multimedia production, as it aspires to generate even more dynamic content that reaches audiences across geographies and generations., Forum primarily offers best practice (harvested and shared via its system-wide convenings and collaborative platforms) ; topic expertise (for example, in applied futures and the principles underpinning just and regenerative agriculture) ; and its role as an implementing partner. Additionally, Forum offers a unique international perspective, as this commitment advances work across three geographies, and Forum for the Future has four regional offices in the UK, US, India, and Southeast Asia; this surfaces diverse perspectives and facilitates global knowledge sharing and learning. Forum provides financial resources to select grassroots organizations in the form of unrestricted and capacity building grants, and stipends for travel and to participate in its events. Forum has cultivated relationships with leading sustainability platforms such as GreenBiz, Reuters, and Sustainable Brands, and would be happy to explore joint media or event pitches with other CGI Commitment Makers whose work is aligned.