A Rosetta Stone for Regenerative Agriculture

REGEN10: THE DEFINING TEST Article 1 of 3

by Hugh Locke, Claire Brosnihan, Tim Tensen

The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect those of their employers.

In 196 BCE, priests gathered to honor the Egyptian pharaoh Ptolemy V by inscribing a decree on a stone slab in three scripts: ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, Demotic, and Ancient Greek. Nobody paid much attention to it for the next two thousand years, at which point it turned out to be the key that unlocked the entire lost world of ancient Egyptian civilization. That artifact, the Rosetta Stone, is now one of the most visited objects in the British Museum. And here we are talking about the original, not the language-learning software, which has yet to unlock any lost civilizations but has taught millions how to order coffee in Italian.

A new global outcomes framework for regenerative agriculture has just been published that may one day be seen as its Rosetta Stone. Most farmers have not yet heard of it. Most consumers will never read it. Yet the Regen10 Outcomes Framework represents the most significant attempt to answer the question that has fractured the regenerative agriculture movement since the term first came into use: what exactly are we trying to achieve? Like its ancient counterpart, this outcomes framework is an attempt to create a shared language, one that can work across every geography, every crop system, and every scale of operation. Unlike its ancient counterpart, we cannot afford to wait two thousand years to find out if it worked.

This is not another certification scheme. It is an attempt to create shared language for outcomes, one capable of providing the common foundation that allows regenerative agriculture to scale globally while maintaining integrity and regional diversity. If it succeeds, it could resolve the definitional chaos that has long fractured the movement. If it fails to achieve broad adoption, the definitional vacuum will be filled by others with narrower ambitions.

The stakes could not be higher. The framework is now public and open for the global regenerative agriculture community to explore, adopt, and test. What happens next will determine whether this becomes a tool for genuine transformation or another missed opportunity. The framework is publicly available at framework.regen10.org, and the time to engage with it is now.

The Problem Regen10 Is Trying to Solve

The immediate problem is proliferation to the point of chaos. When the Regen10 initiative analyzed existing approaches in 2023, they identified over 150 different frameworks purporting to define, measure, or verify regenerative agriculture. Regenerative Organic Certified prohibits GMOs and synthetic chemicals. Regenified permits synthetic inputs with commitments to phase them out. Leading Harvest applies universal outcomes-based approaches. The Rainforest Alliance focuses on specific crops like coffee and cocoa. A Greener World offers certification based on individualized regenerative plans. Some frameworks measure only practices, others measure outcomes, and many do both without clearly distinguishing between the two.

For farmers, this creates an impossible situation. Smallholder farmers in particular are being asked to report against different frameworks depending on which buyer or program they work with. This is a costly and intensive task that farmers cannot assume without greater support and equitable partnership. For companies trying to source regeneratively produced ingredients, the lack of common definitions makes it nearly impossible to compare claims. For investors and policymakers, the absence of standardized metrics prevents meaningful assessment of impact.

The deeper problem is definitional capture. Without agreement on what regenerative agriculture means, the term is being defined through practice by whoever has the resources to implement frameworks at scale. As documented in an earlier article about GMOs in regenerative agriculture, the ratio of farmland claiming regenerative status that includes GMO-based systems versus systems that exclude them is somewhere between twelve-to-one and twenty-to-one in the United States. The baseline is shifting not through consensus but through market share.

This definitional battle is not academic. Definitions create markets, shape policies, and determine which farmers receive support. If regenerative agriculture can be achieved through any set of practices that sequester some carbon while maintaining industrial systems, then billions of dollars flow to operations that look remarkably similar to conventional agriculture with better measurement. If regenerative agriculture requires fundamental transformation of relationships between farming and ecology, then investment flows toward different systems entirely.

This is why the Rosetta Stone analogy is more apt than it might first appear. The original Rosetta Stone didn’t create a new language. It made existing languages legible to each other. The deeper structural problem across the regenerative space is that each of these 150+ frameworks started from its own implicit view of what regeneration should deliver. They diverge not because they’re wrong, but because the outcome scope was never shared. The result is that differences between tools are invisible: are two frameworks measuring the same thing differently, or measuring different things entirely? A soil carbon metric in one scheme might be tracking soil health. In another, it’s a climate proxy. Same measurement, different purpose, and without a shared outcomes reference you can’t tell the difference. Harmonizing metrics will not solve this, because context-specificity means that meaningful indicators vary by geography, farming system and scale. What the ecosystem actually needs is agreement at the outcome level—shared outcomes, diverse measurement approaches—so that different tools can see how they relate to each other and to the full scope of what regeneration requires. That’s outcome-level interoperability, and it’s a key gap the Regen10 Outcomes Framework is designed to fill.

Why an Outcomes Framework Must Come Before Regulatory Definition

Understanding what Regen10 is attempting requires recognizing a critical distinction: the difference between an outcomes framework and a regulatory definition, and why the framework must come first.

A regulatory definition establishes legal boundaries. When the USDA finalized organic regulations in 2002, it created enforceable rules about what practices are permitted and prohibited. This regulatory approach works when there is sufficient consensus about what belongs inside and outside the boundaries. The organic movement knew what it was trying to protect and was ready for regulation to codify those principles.

Regenerative agriculture is not in that position. There is no consensus about which practices are essential and which are incompatible, much less those identified through dialogue with farmers. Attempting to create regulatory definitions before resolving these questions would likely entrench divisions rather than build consensus.

An outcomes framework is different. It does not establish legal boundaries or create enforceable rules. Instead, it provides a shared and holistic reference for what regenerative agriculture needs to achieve across environmental, social, and economic dimensions. It allows diverse practices to be evaluated based on whether they deliver regenerative outcomes in specific contexts rather than mandating uniform approaches.

If governments or international bodies attempt to regulate regenerative agriculture before there is agreement on outcomes, several problems emerge. Premature regulation tends to codify the status quo, favoring established interests with resources to influence policy. Regulation without outcome consensus creates fragmentation across jurisdictions. It risks freezing innovation by specifying practices too precisely. And regulation before consensus erodes trust when farmers feel definitions do not reflect their understanding.

The proper sequence is outcomes framework first, followed by voluntary alignment and adoption, followed by regulatory definition only if and when sufficient consensus emerges. The framework allows the movement to develop shared language through practice and dialogue rather than through political processes.

Regen10 represents this first critical step. Now that the framework has been published, it establishes a reference point against which future regulatory definitions can be measured. But for this to work, the framework needs extensive adoption, testing, and refinement from the broadest possible stakeholder community. Multiple governments are already considering how to integrate regenerative agriculture into agricultural policy and climate programs. Without robust engagement with this framework and continued evolution based on farmer and practitioner feedback, regulatory and market pressures will create their own definitions by default.

This is why the current moment is so significant. The framework is now available for the global regenerative agriculture community to examine, apply, and build on. This represents a critical window to shape how regenerative outcomes are defined and applied, before regulatory and market definitions solidify around whatever is most convenient for existing institutions.

In the next installment, we examine what Regen10 has actually built, and who needs to engage with it now

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