Editor’s word: That is a part of a sequence on closing the sustainability abilities hole with the assets we now have obtainable proper now. Learn the earlier articles on this sequence, which cowl coaching on local weather literacy, scaling company local weather literacy, sustainability technique, local weather and net-zero technique and measuring and managing GHG emissions.
Regenerative agriculture, holistic administration and different nature-based options have grow to be vital parts of sustainability technique for organizations with agricultural inputs. Walmart and PepsiCo just lately introduced their collaboration supporting the adoption of regenerative agricultural practices throughout 2 million acres of farmland in North America. World agricultural provide chain chief ADM expects to cowl 2 million acres within the re:generations™ regenerative agriculture program by the tip of 2023 and is on monitor to satisfy its purpose of overlaying 4 million acres throughout the globe by 2025.
These investments, and lots of others like them, are serving to producers to earn extra revenue whereas lowering greenhouse gasoline emissions, bettering water high quality and soil well being and enhancing biodiversity by way of practices like the usage of cowl crops, built-in livestock and lowered tillage.
Beneath are 14 coaching choices that may enable you to to be taught extra about sustainable farming practices. The primary part focuses on the farm degree and is ideal for professionals who work on-farm or have interaction with suppliers who do. The trainings within the second part zoom out to cowl agricultural provide chain administration. The third part highlights trainings that supply an in-person element, which provides you the possibility to roll up your sleeves and develop a private reference to the land and these practices.
In case you’re excited to study making world meals techniques extra sustainable, simply, nourishing and resilient, remember to attend the Meals Program at GreenBiz’s VERGE 23 occasion Oct. 24-26 in San Jose, California. It’s a three-day expertise that can mean you can uncover probably the most impactful methods, applied sciences and merchandise enabling meals techniques transformation and join with the leaders bringing them to life.
Particular because of Anne Garsztka, a graduate scholar in company sustainability and sustainable meals techniques on the Harvard Extension College, who helped analysis this text.
As is usually the case with most of these lists, I’m certain I’ve missed some. In case your favourite providing isn’t listed right here, I warmly invite you to affix the dialog on LinkedIn to inform me and your fellow readers about it. Thanks prematurely to your assist with bringing these assets out into the open in order that extra folks can get to work on advancing sustainable enterprise practices.
Regenerative agriculture and holistic administration
The first focus of those programs is what may be completed on the farm degree and covers matters resembling regenerative agriculture, soil well being, soil carbon, holistic administration, grassland restoration and different sustainable farming practices. In case you work on-farm or have interaction with suppliers who do, these programs are an awesome place to begin.
The Regenerative Agriculture Revolution from EIT Meals on FutureLearn
This course will clarify the important thing ideas of regenerative agriculture, the advantages of various farming strategies and the way the regenerative mannequin can assist to cut back the environmental affect of farming practices. Learners will likely be guided by way of the event of a regenerative motion plan for a hypothetical farm. That is half of a giant assortment of programs on meals system innovation from EIT Meals.
- Price: $99, or included with paid subscription to FutureLearn
- Subsequent begin date: Accessible on-demand
- Time to finish: 2 weeks, 3 hours per week
- Coaching format: Movies, articles and improvement of an motion plan
- Key matters lined: Why shift to regenerative agriculture; the connection between soil, plant and local weather; animals as key-player within the agroecosystem; the usage of pure assets on farms; how provide chains are transitioning to regenerative agriculture and supporting coverage
Soil Advocate Coaching from Kiss the Floor
This course empowers learners with the information and confidence to successfully advocate for soil well being and regenerative agricultural practices when chatting with various stakeholder teams together with companies, policymakers, and farmers. This course is a part of a set of coaching on regenerative agriculture from Kiss the Floor, which incorporates customizable team-based coaching for companies.
- Price: $180
- Subsequent begin date: Accessible on-demand
- Time to finish: Unspecified
- Coaching format: E-learning, studying
- Key matters lined: How rebuilding soil is the answer; understanding regeneration; regenerative vs. degenerative; soil well being, human well being; replenishing contemporary water sources; making the case
Soil Well being and Regenerative Farming from Terra.do
This course introduces the 5 ideas of soil well being with illustrative, revolutionary examples of how farmers apply these ideas and are incentivized and rewarded for his or her efforts. There’s additionally a dialogue of how soil carbon shares can be utilized to interact in carbon markets and carbon offsets. Learners will stroll away with a deep understanding of soil well being precept purposes and the complexities of scaling regenerative agriculture practices.
- Price: $199
- Subsequent begin date: Nov. 6, 2023
- Time to finish: 2 weeks, 4 hours per week
- Coaching format: Stay on-line courses
- Key matters lined: Rules of soil well being; how soil well being interprets to regenerative agriculture; understanding and measuring soil carbon; supporting the transition to soil well being and regenerative agriculture throughout the meals provide chain
Foundations of Holistic Administration from the Savory Institute
Holistic Administration practices restore grasslands used for livestock grazing. Wholesome grasslands result in carbon sequestration, drought resilience, meals safety and financially viable communities. This course supplies firms, governments and people with the insights and administration instruments wanted to work with the net of complexity that exists in nature; leading to higher, extra knowledgeable selections that stability social, environmental and monetary concerns.
- Price: $399 for the five-course bundle, $99/every for particular person programs
- Subsequent begin date: Accessible on-demand
- Time to finish: 25 hours
- Coaching format: Movies, subject manuals and coach assist
- Key matters lined: Managing ecosystem processes; holistic land planning, deliberate grazing, monetary planning and ecological monitoring; water, mineral and power cycles; neighborhood dynamics; instruments for managing ecosystem processes; decision-making frameworks; growing efficient administration suggestions loops
Meals and Local weather Shaper Boot Camp from the Future Meals Institute
This expertise contains 4 regeneration tracks together with regenerative farms, regenerative cities, regenerative oceans and gastrodiplomacy. The digital boot camp is obtainable on-line, however there are additionally boot camps at inspiring places resembling Pollica, Italy, and Tokyo.
- Price: $2,000
- Subsequent begin date: Coming quickly; apply now to be thought-about for the following cohort
- Time to finish: Roughly 80 hours throughout 4 weeks
- Coaching format: Digital self-paced e-learning, stay conversations with consultants, mentoring periods, group work, design challenges and a hackathon
- Key matters lined: Regenerative agriculture and restoration practices; farming improvements and expertise; farming practices for biodiversity; the intersection of farms, local weather change and meals insecurity; mitigation and adaptation; agroforestry; Indigenous and conventional practices
Sustainable provide chain administration
These trainings focus extra broadly on sustainability in agricultural provide chains. Matters lined in these programs embody provide chain mapping, evaluation and efficiency measurement, procurement insurance policies and influencing change inside your worth chain. A number of of those packages run throughout the rising season and have concluded for 2023; remember to test their web sites usually for brand new program date bulletins.
Sustainable Agri-food Provide Chain Administration from Doane College on edX
This course was developed to show sustainable agri-food provide chain managers concerning the financial, social and environmental sustainability concerns for agri-food provide chains, in addition to learn how to measure, benchmark and report on the environmental sustainability efficiency of provide chains. This course may be taken individually or as a part of a MicroMasters in Sustainable Agribusiness from Doane College.
- Price: Free
- Subsequent begin date: Accessible on-demand
- Time to finish: 8 weeks, about 10 to fifteen hours per week
- Coaching format: E-learning
- Key matters lined: Sustainable agri-food provide chain administration ideas; measuring the environmental sustainability efficiency of provide chains; the significance of ethics and transparency in provide chain administration
Regenerative Agriculture and Provide Chains: The best way to Get Began from FAI.ACADEMY
This course is designed to assist meals provide chain professionals higher perceive the challenges and alternatives of shifting towards provide networks that actively regenerate our planet and the way they’ll successfully affect and drive this alteration. This course is obtainable in three codecs: a free trial course, a self-paced on-line course and a tailor-made personal course for company groups with stay webinar assist. That is one in all many choices from FAI.ACADEMY, a multidisciplinary coaching hub for folks working for a greater meals system.
- Price and entry:
- Subsequent begin date: The trial and self-paced programs can be found on-demand; the personal course is obtainable upon request
- Time to finish: The trial course is 1 hour, the self-paced course is 10 hours, and the personal course contains extra stay interplay
- Coaching format: E-learning, stay on-line periods, non-compulsory go to to a regenerative beef farm
- Key matters lined: Regenerative agriculture definition; how regenerative agriculture works with nature’s ecosystems; case research in regenerative practices; learn how to transition provide chains and design regenerative practices into your provide chain
Constructing Moral + Environmentally Accountable Meals Provide Chains from the Meals Enterprise College on the Culinary Institute of America
This course will educate learners learn how to map out and analyze meals provide chains, develop procurement insurance policies and ingredient specs that assist sustainable meals techniques and leverage state-of-the-art procurement techniques for sustainability efficiency. Learners can even develop personalised provide chain roadmaps to information future decision-making. That is one in all a number of programs obtainable from the Meals Enterprise College on the intersection of meals, sustainability and enterprise.
- Price: $149
- Most up-to-date begin date: Oct. 9, 2023 (Registration remains to be open.)
- Time to finish: 5 weeks
- Coaching format: E-learning
- Key matters lined: Moral questions in provide chains; design and administration of sustainable, strategic provide chains; how reshaping current provide chains can obtain new objectives and outputs; strategies of accountable sourcing; procurement pathways for driving change
The Worldwide Govt Programme on Sustainable Sourcing & Commerce from the Worldwide Commerce Centre, in partnership with SAI Platform and the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Management
This course presents leaders in sustainability, procurement, technique and model advertising a set of instruments for figuring out sustainability dangers and alternatives inside world worth chains and integrating sustainability with company agendas. Digital and in-person networking alternatives are an integral a part of the expertise.
- Price: $700, extra for taking part within the in-person expertise in Portugal
- Subsequent begin date: Coming quickly; go to the web site to register curiosity
- Time to finish: 6 weeks, about 2 to 4 hours per week
- Coaching format: Stay on-line courses and peer conferences, non-compulsory in-person expertise
- Key matters lined: Megatrends impacting world provide chains; carbon impartial and climate-resilient agri-food techniques; instruments to enhance sustainable administration of agriculture provide chains; sustainability management; regenerative agriculture from principle to follow
Mini-MBA in Sustainable Meals Provide Chains from the Institute of Meals and Agribusiness Management
This program teaches college students learn how to develop enterprise fashions and provide chains which can be good for enterprise and good for the planet. There aren’t any admissions necessities; contributors simply want to finish prerequisite programs in meals and agricultural enterprise fashions to be able to entry the mini-MBA coaching content material.
- Price: $799
- Subsequent begin date: Accessible on-demand after finishing conditions
- Time to finish: 6 months, about 3 to 4 hours per week
- Coaching format: E-learning, stay on-line periods
- Key matters lined: Disruptive meals worth chains; AgriFood Tech’s worth to the meals worth chain; meals sustainability and sustainable improvement; meals distribution and retail improvement; sustainable sourcing and logistics; sustainable finance in agriculture
Meals Techniques and World Provide Chains from the Harvard Extension College
This course investigates how meals passes from manufacturing to distribution and consumption and what the sustainability ramifications are, particularly on air, water, soil, power, mining and human well being. It is a research-based course the place contributors select associated meals eventualities and quantify their affect on greenhouse gases and local weather change; power use; air, water and soil degradation; and stable waste disposal. This course may be taken individually or as a part of a Sustainable Meals Techniques Graduate Certificates or Sustainability Grasp’s Diploma.
- Price: $1,500
- Subsequent begin date: Jan. 22, 2024
- Time to finish: 15 weeks, about 2 hours per week
- Coaching format: Stay on-line courses with the choice to attend asynchronously; assignments
- Key matters lined: Agricultural economics; agricultural types and practices; soil assets and issues; meals manufacturing’s affect on air, soil and water; supply-chain administration; quantifying the economics and sustainability of frequent meals objects
Sustainable Meals Manufacturing and Processing from the College of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Management on GetSmarter
This course is designed to learn people working at each stage of world or native meals techniques — from the provider to the buyer. Learners will acquire an understanding of the fashionable meals system and uncover new enterprise fashions, applied sciences and processes for embedding sustainability into meals provide chains. Learners can even construct sensible methods for main this transformation in their very own organizations.
- Price: $2,767
- Subsequent begin date: March 13, 2024
- Time to finish: 8 weeks, about 7 to 10 hours per week
- Coaching format: E-learning, assignments
- Key matters lined: Fashionable meals safety challenges; new enterprise fashions and approaches for sustainable meals; embedding sustainability into meals provide chains; improvements in sustainable meals manufacturing and processing; main transformational change in your context
Get your arms soiled
Who doesn’t love a very good farm keep? These choices provide the likelihood to roll up your sleeves and develop a private reference to the sustainable and regenerative practices you’ll be studying about. These real-world experiences offer you a perspective that’s tough to acquire from on-line content material.
Rodale Institute’s Farmer Coaching College
Rodale Institute is broadly thought-about the worldwide chief in natural agriculture, rising the regenerative natural motion by way of analysis, coaching and shopper training. The Farmer Coaching curriculum is one in all many instructional experiences obtainable by way of Rodale Institute and is designed to allow people with little-to-no farming expertise to grow to be totally succesful farmers or farm managers.
- Price: College students obtain a weekly stipend
- Subsequent begin date: March 4, 2024
- Time to finish: 9 months
- Coaching format: Farm keep, in-person courses
- Key matters lined: Regenerative natural farming science; agricultural budgeting; advertising; agricultural product finance
Local weather Farm College from Terra.do
It is a hybrid four-week program combining on-line periods with getting your arms soiled on a working farm. Tech, enterprise and sustainability professionals, entrepreneurs, farmers and others captivated with meals and local weather are invited to be taught concerning the local weather affect of meals techniques and the options inside them.
- Price: $2,200 to $3,600, relying on which farm you go to
- Subsequent begin date: March 25, 2024
- Time to finish: 4 weeks
- Coaching format: 7-day farm keep, stay on-line courses, on-demand movies, studying
- Key matters lined: Regenerative agriculture ideas; crop administration; forestry and hearth mitigation work; soil well being; constructing soil carbon; farm enterprise fashions; water administration; meals justice; meals
In-person add-on experiences
A number of of the packages listed above can be found as on-line coaching but in addition supply non-compulsory in-person experiences:
- The Meals & Local weather Shaper Boot Camps from the Future Meals Institute supply experiences in Pollica, Italy, and Tokyo
- The Worldwide Govt Programme on Sustainable Sourcing & Commerce from the Worldwide Commerce Centre presents a regenerative agriculture-focused expertise in Portugal
- Regenerative Agriculture and Provide Chains: The best way to Get Began from FAI.ACADEMY presents a go to to a regenerative beef farm within the U.Ok.
Be part of the dialog
I hope this text has helped you discover at the very least one nice new useful resource that can assist you incorporate regenerative practices into your work. You’ll want to preserve an eye fixed out for future articles on this sequence and keep in mind, if I’ve missed one in all your favorites or if you wish to inform me a couple of useful resource that may very well be related to a future article, please be a part of the dialog on LinkedIn. Till subsequent time!
