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Regenerative agriculture and produce safety co-management

  • 6 hours ago
  • 5 min read

When properly utilized many regenerative agriculture practices can be an effective part of a farms produce safety plan.


Where Produce Safety and Regenerative Agriculture Overlap: Buffer Strips, Pollinator Habitat, and NRCS Conservation Practices

Regenerative agriculture is sometimes discussed as being in direct conflict with produce safety. As stewards of the land that we work, produce safety and regenerative agriculture need to coexist. This is where co-management comes into play.


Produce safety focuses on reducing the risk of microbial contamination of produce. Regenerative agriculture focuses on improving soil health, biodiversity, water cycling, and farm resilience. These goals are not separate from each other and often overlap.


Co-management means planning farm practices so conservation, soil health, wildlife habitat, water quality, and produce safety are considered together. This is especially important for fresh produce farms, where growers must think carefully about water movement, animal activity, soil health, pest pressure, harvest conditions, and neighboring land uses at the same time.


Buffer strips, pollinator strips, field borders, hedgerows, cover crops, and conservation cover are good examples. These practices are often promoted for conservation or regenerative agriculture, but they can also support produce safety when they are placed, maintained, and monitored with produce safety risks in mind.


Conservation Does Not Have to Conflict With Produce Safety

One common concern is that pollinator habitat, field borders, or vegetated buffers may attract wildlife or pests near produce fields. That concern is understandable. Deer, birds, rodents, and other animals can create produce safety risks if they contaminate production areas.


Produce safety does not require a farm to remove all habitat or eliminate all wildlife. Farming will always involve interaction with the surrounding environment. The practical question is not whether wildlife exists on the farm, but whether the risks associated with wildlife can be properly mitigated.


A well-managed vegetated strip can reduce erosion, slow runoff, filter sediment, support beneficial insects, and improve biodiversity. A poorly managed strip, placed in the wrong location or allowed to become dense, unmanaged cover next to crops, could create avoidable concerns. The difference is planning and management.


NRCS conservation practices are useful examples because they are built around specific resource concerns. Many of those concerns overlap directly with produce safety and regenerative agriculture.


Filter Strips: Slowing Water and Reducing Risk

A filter strip is a planted area of vegetation designed to slow and filter overland water flow. On a produce farm, this may be used between a field and a ditch, waterway, road, livestock area, or downslope edge.


From a regenerative agriculture perspective, a filter strip keeps living roots in the soil, reduces erosion, protects soil structure, improves water infiltration, and helps stabilize field edges.


From a produce safety perspective, the same strip may help reduce movement of sediment, organic matter, nutrients, and other contaminants like feces in runoff. That matters because water movement can be one of the biggest contamination concerns on a farm. A filter strip does not replace produce safety practices, but it can be part of the mitigation measures used to reduce risk.


Filter strips address both produce safety and regenerative agriculture protecting soil, water, and the production areas.


Field Borders: Turning Field Edges Into Managed Areas

Field borders are permanent vegetated areas established along the sides of fields. These areas can help reduce erosion, protect soil and water quality, provide habitat for pollinators and beneficial insects, and help manage field-edge resource concerns.


For regenerative agriculture, field borders add perennial cover and plant diversity to areas that might otherwise be bare, weedy, eroding, or difficult to farm. They can provide habitat for beneficial insects, increase biodiversity, and improve soil health.


For produce safety, the benefit is managing an area that could be of concern. A defined field border is easier to monitor than an unmanaged edge. It can be mowed, scouted, mapped, and included in the farm’s risk assessment. It can also create a clear separation between production areas and roads, ditches, neighboring land uses, or other potential sources of runoff, dust, or overspray.


Field borders should be treated as a managed practice, not an abandoned area. Plant selection, mowing timing, pest monitoring, and harvest scouting all matter.


Hedgerows: Habitat With a Purpose

Hedgerows are linear plantings of shrubs, trees, grasses, and flowering plants. They can support pollinators, beneficial insects, wind protection, wildlife habitat, and farm biodiversity.


From a regenerative standpoint, hedgerows add permanent perennial vegetation, increase habitat complexity, support carbon storage, and help connect the farm to the surrounding ecosystem.


From a produce safety standpoint, hedgerows require thoughtful placement. They may be appropriate along field edges, roadsides, property lines, or areas where they provide wind protection or habitat benefits without creating unnecessary harvest risk. They can help provide protection to production areas by mitigating potential routes of contamination from neighboring areas, such as dust, wind drift, and overspray.


A hedgerow can be a positive practice when it is designed with clear goals. Hedgerows are another practice that can address both produce safety and regenerative agriculture goals.


Conservation Cover and Beneficial Insects

Pollinator strips, or the NRCS practice conservation cover, is another place where regenerative agriculture and produce safety can overlap. These areas can support beneficial insects by providing flowers, pollen, nectar, shelter, and overwintering habitat.


Pollinator strips support regenerative agriculture by increasing biodiversity. By increasing biodiversity, farms can support pollination and potentially increase crop yields. Increased biodiversity can also support natural enemies such as lady beetles, lacewings, hoverflies, minute pirate bugs, parasitic wasps, and ground beetles. These beneficial insects can help suppress aphids, thrips, caterpillars, and other pests.


A biologically active farm edge can support pollination and pest management while also serving as a planned buffer between production areas and adjacent land uses. Pollinator strips can aid in slowing runoff during wet weather events, reduce erosion on vulnerable edges, and create a managed area instead of an unmanaged weedy patch.


Pollinator strips should still be planned with produce safety in mind. They should not inhibit visibility for scouting, create unmanaged cover directly next to crops, or be planted where they will attract unwanted animal activity into production areas. They should also be planted in areas where pesticide drift will not be an issue, especially if the goal is to attract pollinators and beneficial insects.


Managing the Wildlife Concern

The biggest produce safety concern with conservation plantings is animal activity. Vegetation can provide food and cover for wildlife, depending on the plant species, location, and surrounding landscape. That does not mean growers should avoid conservation practices. It means they should be mindful when implementing them.


Maintaining visibility between habitat and harvest areas is important. Use mowed lanes or access paths so workers can scout field edges. Avoid placing dense habitat directly against crops that are highly attractive to deer or rodents unless there is a clear monitoring plan. Keep cull piles, standing water, and trash away from production areas. Monitor for feces, tracks, crop damage, burrows, nesting, or rooting before harvest. Flag affected areas and establish no-harvest zones when needed. Train harvest crews to report signs of animal intrusion.


The goal is not to remove nature from the farm. The goal is to identify when animal activity creates a contamination risk and mitigate those risks appropriately. When done right, produce safety and regenerative agriculture can work together to achieve multiple goals of the farm.


Resources


eCFR 21 CFR Part 112, Subpart I - Domesticated and Wild Animalshttps://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/chapter-I/subchapter-B/part-112/subpart-I








MSU Extension - Attracting Beneficial Insects with Native Flowering Plantshttps://www.canr.msu.edu/resources/attracting_beneficial_insects_with_native_flowering_plants_e2973

 

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