Questioning how regen ag should scale turned out to be quite the can of worms!

A week or so ago I posted a short reflection on LinkedIn after attending the Groundswell event.

I’d felt a shift and I had been speaking to others who felt it too...so I dared speak about it on LinkedIn and my phone was buzzing all weekend.

I reflected on how there was a feeling that the regenerative agriculture conversation was in the early stages of being shaped more by industry voices. It wasn’t a bold statement when you look at the exhibitor and speaker list....though in hindsight the title and imagery might have been a bit pokey.

It was more of a quiet observation and putting the feelers out with some pertinent questions.

What surprised me was the response. Over 30,000 impressions, over 170 reactions and nearly 100 comments later, it was clear I wasn’t the only one with questions and opinions on the topic. Some people agreed. Some didn’t. But I'm going to take from it that a lot of people felt it was worth talking about.

You can read the post and comments here

As a researcher, this is what I do: listen, notice, join the dots, then ask questions to validate assumptions - often cycling through several times over. And while I work across the food and farming supply chain, my starting point is always the same: what are people really saying, and what does it tell us about where we’re heading?

This post isn’t a follow-up to argue a point. It's not positioning farmers as the 'good guys' and industry as 'bad guys' - as I was accused several times of doing.

It’s a chance to pause and reflect on what I’ve learned from the responses. What’s going on beneath the surface? And how do we balance growth with authenticity in a movement that matters so much to so many?

The Bigger Groundswell Conversation

Groundswell started as a farmer-focused event. Practical, hopeful, full of energy. A place for people experimenting with new ways of farming to come together and learn. Over the years, it’s grown. More tents. More topics. More people. More influencers. More money involved.

That growth is a good thing. It means more interest, more energy, more potential for change. But it also brings a new set of questions. Who’s shaping the agenda? Are farmers still leading the conversation, or are they now one voice among many?

Some commenters on my post felt the event still had strong farmer representation. Others said it had started to feel more like a corporate gathering. Some pointed to rising ticket prices. Others welcomed the presence of food brands, retailers and funders. As always, it depends on where you’re standing.

What united most responses, though, was the importance of keeping farmers at the heart of the movement - something I was keen to lead with when I asked my original questions.

❓Is the commercialisation of regen inevitable if it needs to scale?

❓Are we doing enough to protect the authenticity of the system change and do we need to?

❓There’s no doubt regenerative agriculture is gaining traction. We need to protect the authenticity of the farming voices within it...don't we?

How people responded to my questions.

Reading through the comments (and using some nifty market research tools we have in house to analyse theme and sentiment, code-frame responses etc), a few strong themes stood out;

People want it to stay real

Lots of people spoke about the importance of authenticity. They want regenerative farming to be about what happens in the field, not just on the label or in the boardroom decisions. There were worries about tokenism and greenwashing. About slick messaging overtaking real action. About the loss of peer-to-peer learning in favour of polished presentations and death by powerpoint.

Collaboration is welcome, but power matters

Most people agreed we need everyone at the table, farmers, scientists, food businesses, policymakers. But there was a real sense that farmers shouldn’t be guests at their own event. When people feel their voice is being diluted, they tend to withdraw. And if farmers switch off from regenerative conversations, the movement risks losing its roots and its momentum.

Speed and scale are useful, but at what cost?

A few people commented that industry involvement brings momentum. That’s true. We’ve seen it in other sectors. But moving fast can come at a cost. When decisions are made too far from the ground, they risk being disconnected. And when the focus shifts from long-term care to short-term returns, trust can slip. We need to be careful not to lose what made the movement meaningful in the first place and understand how generational priorities align with next year's P&L spreadsheet!

Consumers are paying attention

Some of the responses touched on consumer trust. It’s clear that people are increasingly interested in how their food is grown. But they’re also wary of big claims. Behaviourally, trust is built through consistency and transparency, and it’s lost when messaging doesn’t match action. If regenerative becomes a brand buzzword without substance, it risks undermining itself before it’s had a chance to take hold...much like 'sustainability' has.

It’s time to rethink event design

Several people suggested having more farmer-only sessions, closed peer discussions or streams that go deeper into specific topics. Not to exclude others, but to keep the quality of conversations high and less watered down for those with expert knowledge. Bigger doesn’t always mean better. Sometimes the most valuable conversations happen in small, focused spaces...often where there is a beer and a bar involved when it comes to Groundswell!

What’s at Stake

There’s a lot to gain from more people getting involved in regenerative agriculture. Investment, innovation, consumer awareness, and policy interest. We need those things if we’re going to move the needle on climate, biodiversity and soil health.

But we have to be mindful of how we get there. We’ve seen it before when a movement grows quickly, it’s easy for the original drivers to get pushed aside.

Farmers are not just stakeholders - louder for those at the back!

They’re central to the whole thing. If their voice is drowned out, we lose more than a perspective. We risk losing trust, progress and momentum.

We also lose the nuance.

When farmers are part of the design, we get real-world, workable solutions. When they’re side lined, muscled out or talked over, we often end up with something that looks good on paper but doesn’t work on the ground...a lot of corporate speak and slide decks with little real world application or actions to take away.

A Final Word

I’m not anti-scale, anti-industry, anti-brand or anti-progress...most of those nguys are my clients and unsurprisingly I get on very well with the people who pay our bills. My job when we work with them is to find farmer voices - so this is what I am doing.

I’m pro-conversation and collaboration. I believe in listening to different perspectives and staying open.

For regenerative agriculture to succeed, it needs to be broad and inclusive. But it also needs to stay grounded in the realities of farming. That means putting farmers in the lead not out of sentiment, but because it’s the best route to meaningful change.

There’s room for everyone. But we need to get the balance right and we need to listen more than we talk.