Final report for GNE22-281
Project Information
This qualitative research project investigates how regenerative agriculture (RA) is initiated, maintained, and adapted by farmers across New England. Through 43 in-depth interviews and 23 on-farm visits, the study explores how social, material, and embodied factors shape regenerative practice beyond prescriptive techniques.
Findings reveal that while ethical and ecological motivations are central to farmers' commitment to RA, these are insufficient without corresponding material and institutional support. Barriers such as insecure land tenure, labor shortages, and lack of infrastructure contribute to burnout and precarity, while relational infrastructure, adaptive knowledge, and peer support networks help sustain regenerative efforts over time.
The study emphasizes that RA is not simply a set of best practices, but a dynamic, relational process rooted in land access, bodily capacity, social ties, and ecological responsiveness. Emotional labor and somatic sustainability—often excluded from outreach and policy—are shown to be essential to long-term viability.
Policy and programmatic recommendations include expanding long-term land access, investing in cooperative infrastructure and mentorship, and recognizing the physical and emotional demands of farming in outreach, funding, and extension frameworks. These insights aim to support more equitable and durable transitions toward regenerative systems in the region.
This research pursued three primary objectives:
- To understand how regenerative agriculture is practiced as a relational, embodied process rather than a fixed set of techniques.
- To identify key barriers and supports that shape the initiation, maintenance, and adaptation of RA on small and mid-sized farms.
- To provide actionable recommendations for service providers, organizations, and policymakers seeking to support farmer-led regenerative transitions.
Regenerative agriculture is increasingly seen as a promising path toward ecological and social sustainability. Yet dominant framings—often focused on technical practices like cover cropping, no-till, or rotational grazing—can overlook the deeper social, bodily, and material work involved in regeneration. This project responds to a growing recognition that understanding RA requires close attention to farmers’ lived experiences, including how practices are shaped by access to land, labor conditions, bodily capacity, shared knowledge, and ecological feedback.
A sociomaterial lens guided this research, foregrounding the interdependence between farmers’ ethical motivations, material environments, physical labor, and social relations. This approach allowed the study to move beyond conventional categories like “barriers” or “adoption challenges,” and instead examine how RA emerges—or fails to—when these elements come into (mis)alignment. Farmers’ decisions to farm regeneratively were often rooted in ethical, spiritual, or emotional orientations rather than market incentives or institutional definitions. However, when these motivations were not supported by material conditions—such as secure land tenure, access to tools, or bodily sustainability—practices became precarious or stalled.
Regenerative agriculture (RA) has emerged as a prominent framework in discussions about sustainable food systems. Improved ecosystem function associated with goals such as soil restoration, carbon sequestration, biodiversity enhancement, and rural revitalization, RA is increasingly positioned as a remedy the unintended consequences of industrial agriculture. However, much of the public discourse treats RA as a fixed suite of technical practices or certifiable standards, overlooking the relational, embodied, and context-specific realities of farming.
This qualitative social science research project was designed to investigate how regenerative agriculture is adopted, maintained, and adapted by farmers in New England. Drawing on 43 in-depth interviews and 23 on-farm visits, the study asked: What barriers and facilitators shape how regenerative agriculture is initiated—particularly through land access—maintained over time, adapted to changing conditions, and deepened into multispecies and ethical commitments?
Rather than framing RA as a checklist of techniques, this project approached it as a sociomaterial practice—an ongoing negotiation among land, labor, infrastructure, ecological feedback, and human intention. Social science perspectives remind us that agriculture is never purely technical; it is always social, emotional, political, and cultural. Farmers’ engagement with regenerative ideals is deeply shaped by structural conditions such as land tenure, financial precarity, bodily labor, and the availability of support networks.
In contextualizing this work, it is important to recognize that RA sits at a crossroads among various alternative agricultural models. Like organic, biodynamic, agroecological, and permaculture systems, RA challenges extractive approaches and emphasizes ecological integration. But unlike certified systems governed by strict rules, RA often remains loosely defined—combining land-based practices with a broader vision for environmental resilience and rural transformation. This flexibility has enabled widespread adoption but also poses the risk of co-optation. Without political commitments or institutional safeguards, RA can become a surface-level rebranding of conventional agriculture rather than a meaningful alternative.
This project responds to this ambiguity by foregrounding the lived experiences of farmers working toward regeneration under conditions of constraint. It highlights how regenerative farming is sustained not only through ecological methods, but through relational care, adaptive knowledge, and persistent negotiation with structural barriers. As environmental shifts and disruption, economic pressures, and social fragmentation intensify, the future of RA depends on recognizing the full humanity and situatedness of the farmers who practice it.
Research
Interviews
A total of 43 in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with farmers across all six New England states. Interviewees were selected through purposive and snowball sampling, with emphasis on those who self-identified as practicing or aspiring toward regenerative agriculture. Recruitment occurred via direct outreach through farm websites, regenerative farming networks, and word-of-mouth referrals. Interviews were conducted primarily over Zoom between October 2022 and March 2024, each lasting between 90 to 120 minutes.
Interview questions focused on how farmers came to regenerative agriculture, what practices they used or rejected, and what social, emotional, and material conditions shaped their experiences. The approach was deliberately flexible—designed to allow farmers to direct the conversation toward what they saw as most relevant, while maintaining consistency across core themes such as land tenure, labor, infrastructure, and peer support. Interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and coded using NVivo software.
On-Farm Visits
To complement the interview data, 23 on-farm visits were conducted with a subset of interview participants between July 2023 and September 2024. These walking interviews offered insight into the physical and ecological dimensions of regenerative practice, and allowed observation of farm layout, infrastructure, materials, and nonhuman dynamics. Farmers led the tours, determining the route and pace, which created space for situated, grounded conversation. Fieldnotes, photographs, and audio recordings were collected during each visit, with particular attention to material flows, labor arrangements, and sensory interactions with the land.
Supplementary Materials
In addition to interviews and visits, the project drew on supplementary sources to contextualize findings. These included:
- Review of farm websites, newsletters, and social media content to understand how farmers publicly frame their practices and values.
- Participation in four regional farming events and gatherings focused on regenerative agriculture, where peer-to-peer learning and informal exchange were observed.
- Collection of media coverage and organizational reports related to regenerative farming in the region, which helped situate participant experiences within broader public discourse.
Analytical Approach
Data were analyzed using a grounded, thematic approach informed by sociomaterial practice theory. Transcripts and fieldnotes were coded in iterative phases, beginning with open coding and progressing to focused thematic development. Memos were written throughout the analysis process to support reflexivity and track evolving interpretations. The goal was not to quantify frequency, but to trace how meanings, materials, competencies, and embodiment intersected in farmers’ experiences of regeneration. Emphasis was placed on amplifying farmers’ own words and framing their knowledge as primary, not derivative. See Appendices A-C for further detail on methods and analysis.
Appendix A_ A Sociomaterial Practice Theory Approach
See Appendix D for Participant Demographics and Profiles:
Appendix D_ Participant Demographics and Profiles
See Appendix E for additional data tables referenced below.
Appendix E_Additional Supporting Data Tables
1.1 Farmland Access and Tenure
Access to secure farmland emerged as the most significant enabler of regenerative agriculture across the sample. Farmers who were able to begin RA practices often did so through non-market pathways—such as inherited family land, partner support, or other privileges. Farmers often expressed some discomfort with these advantages. Felicity shared, “My dad bought the land back in the 60s…and I owe nothing on the land, and my husband has a good job. Those are the only two reasons I can do this. Otherwise, I would not be doing this, because I'm losing our money. I'm working hard and losing our money.” These routes into landholding reflected structural privilege more than institutional access. Cameron explained his belief on the topic of privilege: “If you want to have a farm…that's really difficult, you need to figure out what your unfair advantages are and lean on them…to make the world a better place...”
Conversely, those without secure tenure described their efforts as delayed or constrained. Doug explained, “I was first a cook and I decided to seek out better quality food. And that brought me to the land. And I’ve been struggling with land access for 20 years.” Killian remarked on the impacts of this precarity, “…You're always wondering, is this going to be…the last crop I'm going to put in, and you certainly can't plant Christmas trees on a five-year lease.” Their awareness highlighted that motivation alone cannot overcome structural barriers; material starting points shape what is possible. These accounts show that land insecurity undercuts not only long-term planning, but the emotional and ethical commitments at the heart of RA.
(Table 1. Farmland Access and Structural Privilege in Appendix E)
1.2 Economic Privilege, Struggle, and Limits
Alongside land access, economic conditions structured whether RA could be initiated and sustained. Farmers emphasized the need for starting capital, reduced debt loads, or off-farm income to bridge the early, low-revenue years. Felicity’s account points to this dual foundation: secure land combined with a spouse’s income. Others described similar buffers through partner employment, family support, or savings that underwrote experimentation and early losses.
Conversely, farmers without these cushions turned to credit, postponed adoption, or scaled ambitions downward. Violet elaborated, “I mean, we have farmers…starting out their first year, and they're in $1,900 a month apartment. I mean, it's all credit card. You can't do it.” These statements show how structural limits shaped what was materially possible.
Over the longer term, economic constraints persisted even for farmers with land and established practices. Participants repeatedly described the difficulty of paying themselves fairly, affording hired labor, or sustaining the farm as a livelihood. Felicity captured this frustration: “When I started…everybody was saying, regenerative agriculture can make a living…The proof is showing that you cannot make a living doing agriculture in general, but especially regenerative agriculture.” Freya explained the cultural context of pricing: “It is sometimes hard to be there and hear people like griping over pricing. While, I also am like, not really paying myself a living wage yet.” Louis pointed to the structural frame: “Farmers are kind of up against an unfair economic [system]—in the US…people spend…10% [of income] on food. In other parts of the world, it is like 30, 40, 50%.” Alice put the tension plainly: “These eggs are really expensive, or that those greens are really expensive. And then when you think about it, it's really challenging for farmers to pay themselves a fair wage to do work.” Killian added, “I try to make minimum wage or a little bit better.” Louis noted seasonality and cash flow: “Cashflow is the number one problem that any business runs up against. And farmers, particularly in New England, run into the fact that we have really long, hard winters. And during those months, you're not going to have great cash.” Heather described bridging the early years: “We need support…we just sort of slowly chipped away at, like, getting people to both invest, but also like, become customers and become involved. And I kept my job for the first two years.”
Despite these constraints, many farmers emphasized that regenerative agriculture carried meaning beyond profit. Marcus reflected, “I didn’t think we could support ourselves farming, but I thought it’d be a wonderful thing to do as a sideline, and that raised food for our kids, which was important to us.” Otto described being “less focused on making a profit and more about doing what feels good for the community.” From a sociomaterial perspective, these limits are not external to farming but constitutive of it; regeneration depends not only on ecological design and farmer commitment, but on the broader economic systems that determine how food is valued and how agricultural labor is compensated.
(Table 2. Economic Limits in Appendix E)
1.3 Housing Access and Labor Precarity
Housing was a persistent and intertwined constraint. Violet underscored the broader affordability context: “We have farmers…starting out their first year, and they're in $1,900 a month apartment…It's all credit card.” Lack of affordable housing for farm owners and employees undermined recruitment and retention and limited the ability to bring on seasonal staff or interns. Annabel explained, “We don't have housing, so we can't really have an intern style you know, affordable labor here.” These effects were particularly acute for low-mechanization farms, where labor needs are high. Violet explained, “…smaller farms take more labor, they're less mechanized, and so we need more people fully invested in growing food.”
Several farmers emphasized the regulatory obstacles tied to providing on-farm housing. Felicity explained, “[New England state] is also very tight about employee housing and how you handle that… I don't believe that you could put up cabin type housing here and have a whole bunch of even paid interns staying in cabin housing...” Killian added that these constraints discouraged planning: “…you immediately run into housing as the next problem. It's a serious problem.” By contrast, some noted that other states allowed unpaid interns to be housed in group quarters, underscoring how state-level regulations shape labor models.
Others described feeling systemic pressure to personally address housing shortages. Ophelia reflected, “That’s a really big challenge that we have…how do you bring in more young families and make this the town, make the whole model of living here more sustainable?” Violet expressed frustration with being positioned as the solution to wider crises: “I’m starting to feel all the pressure applied to farmers to…solve the housing problem…can’t you build more housing on your farm and do better and produce more to feed more people…”
From a sociomaterial perspective, housing and labor are co-constitutive constraints: without places for people to live, the labor required to sustain RA cannot materialize.
While many farmers emphasized the regulatory and affordability barriers to housing, others noted how transformative it was when housing was available. One farm, for example, described being able to host interns and summer workers in a large farmhouse: “We had a big farmhouse… we would have interns stay with us. We would have summer workers. “Similarly, Iris explained that “…above our store…we've created a room up there. We've had someone stay in the house…the goal is to have, you know, three or four cabins out there, and maybe like an outdoor kitchen, and so they can have kind of their own little community area there.” Ripley similarly discussed these benefits of housing employees: “We offer housing, because we've got this huge farmhouse, we have no kids. So, it kind of works out good for us.”
Similarly, farmers working with H-2A visa employees described how, though expensive, the requirement to provide housing created a stable and reliable labor arrangement: “They have to have a certain square footage, inspected housing… We have to provide stipends, transportation… But they are very well taken care of.” In these cases, compliance with housing rules was difficult, but it guaranteed workers a place to live, and farms a dependable workforce.
(Table 3. Housing Access and Material Constraints in Appendix E)
1.4 Slow Growth, Scaling Back, and Livability Strategies
Many participants described intentionally growing slowly or scaling back over time as a way to preserve sustainability for themselves and their land. Annabel illustrated, “My husband worked full time landscaping, and I was working five nights a week at a restaurant. And it's just been a really slow…we just really slow growth and no credit.” Miles echoed, “We started out slow, we knew it was going to be very slow growth.” Cameron described the long arc: “Every year, you know, it's a slow, long journey…we get closer to the goal of being…fully financially viable.” Achilles emphasized avoiding debt while testing efficacy: “We are still working at other places. We don't want to and don't need to take on debt at this point…we're fairly convinced, but we're not convinced of the efficacy of what we're doing, necessarily.”
The shift to reducing complexity was not framed as failure, but as refinement. Violet discussed, “…where we're at now…I feel like we've scaled back on a lot of those things, because I feel like we'd been doing them for many years and not seeing successes.” Marigold similarly described, “We got smarter with what we're trying to produce… selecting the few things we're excited by, and also the things that are more profitable.” Farmers describe letting go of stress-inducing enterprises, simplifying crop plans, or focusing on quality relationships over volume. Louis captured the low-overhead ingenuity that accompanies such strategies: “We just took a washing machine, retrofitted a basket, and then we can spin our salad mix…those are the kinds of simple tools…against economic pressures.”
These strategies show how structural constraints on land, housing, and capital translated into deliberate pacing and scaling choices, aligning ambition with what was financially and physically possible. Livability emerges as a central goal: aligning ambition with bodily, economic, and ecological capacity.
(Table 4. Slowing Down as Livability Strategy in Appendix E)
- Early Frictions: Competency Barriers
The early years of RA were often marked by steep learning curves and bodily strain. Few participants had formal training in ecological farming. Most learned through trial, error, and exhaustion. Wren explained, “But we're still very much learning. We're first-generation farmers and work out it's all kind of trial and error.” Bellamy echoed, “…I made a lot of mistakes back then that that I look back now and laugh, but I think it was necessary to learn all those things back then…and now it makes it a lot easier now.” Otto elaborated, “I had read about and learn about other strategies…prior to farming, but I didn't adopt those strategies until like, five to eight years in…we didn't have…the mechanisms in place…”
This competency gap had real consequences. Bellamy indicated, “…In the beginning, I would try to adjust my paddock sizes…without any regard of you know, how's the how's the soil looking? So I would leave the cows there until the grass was down. And…now those cows are going back and taking that dreaded second bite of that plant that's trying to regrow.” These early mistakes stemmed not from apathy, but from unsupported learning environments that lacked technical training or institutional scaffolding. Farmers carried the weight of mistakes physically and emotionally, underscoring how barriers of knowledge and skill compounded foundational challenges of land and capital.
- Motivations and Meanings: Ethical Commitments in Practice
While land access and competencies shaped what was possible, farmers consistently emphasized that their entry into regenerative agriculture was guided first by values rather than methods. For many, RA was less about market efficiency or technical advantage than about aligning their lives with ecological, ethical, or ancestral commitments. Achilles described his practice as rooted in environmental responsibility: “This is a small way to participate in a green future.” For Maya, the motivation was relational and historical: “Farming brings me closer to my ancestors and how they lived with the land.” These statements reflect a shared orientation toward farming as an ethical or spiritual undertaking. Rather than starting from profitability, farmers described starting from meaning.
This moral dimension was also described in terms of care and responsibility. Several farmers framed regenerative farming as a way to act on deeply felt obligations toward land and community. These accounts suggest that motivations were not simply instrumental, but part of a broader project of living differently. At the same time, the weight of these commitments could become overwhelming. Ella explained, “…recycling, or all of these different things. And it put a lot of…pressure on me…I felt very, like, if I didn't do it, right…the world was gonna fall apart.” For Alice, farming meant confronting an ongoing imbalance: “the tide is always going out and it's always coming in. It's never easy…So you're just you're trying your hardest just to find that…equilibrium…” These reflections show that meaning can sustain practice, but it can also create heavy affective pressure, particularly when external support is lacking.
From a sociomaterial perspective, these accounts underscore that ethical commitments are not free-floating beliefs but are entangled with material practice. Values were embodied, enacted, and strained in daily work. Regeneration was sustained not by belief alone, but through alignment between meaning, bodily capacity, material flows, and infrastructural support.
(Table 5. Spiritual Motivations in Appendix E)
- Maintaining Practices: Daily Work and Informal Supports
4.1 Circulating Matter: The Labor of Material Flows
Once regenerative systems were initiated, their continuation relied not only on values and land access, but on the daily work of moving materials and sustaining informal networks of support. This phase of practice involved stabilizing routines—turning compost, rotating livestock, planting and harvesting—all under conditions of limited infrastructure, labor, and time. While practices became familiar, they did not become effortless. Continuity required material improvisation, somatic endurance, and relational care.
Managing material flows—compost, water, livestock, and finished products—was a daily challenge. Farmers described lacking infrastructure like greenhouses, storage, and wash/pack space, which made otherwise simple tasks labor-intensive and time-consuming. “We don't have a proper heated greenhouse, so we are…delayed a lot of the times. We have a caterpillar tunnel so we do have a covered space that gets a good sun and gets hot, but we can't start stuff like peppers and tomatoes in March…” explained Achilles. Others described improvisational strategies. Miles recalled, “There's just a hoop structure she built on a wooden frame, put some wheels on it, and put tarps over top of it. And then every windstorm would come through and it would rip the tarp off or roll the whole thing across the field.”
In response, many farmers adopted creative reuse systems, including through local partnerships. Cassie explained, “And tarps are expensive, but we got a whole bunch of tarps, like old billboard signs…from this farm that was going out of business…we got them for free.” Julian similarly said, “I bet I spend…30% of my time farming doing mechanical work. So whether that's tearing apart a tractor, tearing apart a trailer…You got to be a jack of all trades.” Storage and transport to processing facilities were also major friction points. Marigold noted, “…the biggest challenge is…both cold storage and freezer storage…we don't have the infrastructure…to keep things that are perishable from…going bad.” Keri added, “We’ve five different places [for processing]…about 100 miles away one way…go back and pick up the beef…with 400 miles of transportation to get the animal from the pasture to the freezer.” From a sociomaterial perspective, these material flows were not inert inputs; they shaped labor routines, time allocation, and bodily strain.
4.2 Relational Infrastructures: Sharing, Networks, and Mutual Aid
Because material constraints were constant, relational infrastructures became critical for ongoing practice. These supports were not formal or institutional, but grounded in trust, reciprocity, and proximity: shared tools, community donations, informal co-ops or food hubs, and emotional support.
Doug described borrowing a tractor during a critical time: “…we were able to borrow a tractor to move the chipper around the field…It was a lot of work. But we got we got some help.” Otto illustrated how resource flows operated through these networks: “Our compost [is] from a farm down the road…all the woodchips we get for free from arborists…there’s this program called chip drop.” Such accounts underscore that relational infrastructures often filled structural gaps left by limited capital for materials or labor.
Annabel emphasized how knowledge exchange and cooperative markets were equally vital: “We just have a really nice network of farms, friends with a lot of experience…We do the winter cooperative CSA…we work with three other farms.” She added that philanthropy occasionally buffered labor shortages: “The last two years we've been really lucky a CSA member donated enough money for us to hire someone two days a week for the season.” Achilles also pointed to regional networks as key to continuity: “…we make an effort to try to make connections. We also have been introduced [to] some farms through the [New England area] food hub…”
These supports were competency supporting as well as material. Relational infrastructure offered not just tools, but problem-solving and market access. Maintenance is not an individual act—it is distributed across a web of human and more-than-human actors. These networks are what enable resilience in the face of ongoing strain.
4.3 Embodiment in Continuity: Labor, Fatigue, and Somatic Limits
As farmers moved beyond the initial adoption phase, the body emerged as a central site of both sustainability and strain. Regenerative farming demanded not only knowledge and infrastructure, but daily physical labor. Achilles described the toll clearly: “It’s a physical job. So you need to be on top of your physical health.” Maya reflected on public imaginaries: “It's like a lot of folks have this…almost fantasy about working on land and being with the land, but the reality is, it's really [expletive] hard work.” For aging or solo farmers, embodiment became a limiting factor, often by the sheer limits of one body. Ella explained, “…selling vegetables alone, is not doing it…what I can do physically, myself, I can't push…even if I…want to, I just physically can't.”
Some farmers mitigated somatic strain through relational or economic buffers. Ella shared, “[My sister] was working with me on the farm here…you’d probably be really great for us to work together.” Otto emphasized crew capacity: “It’s all about…finding…I have a great crew…they’re solid workers, they can get it done.” Embodiment was also a site of vitality. Achilles noted, “…it's like having a really good workout,” and Freya shared, “I love the physical work of it.” Iris captured the resonance: “It was just my dream to be on a farm…the rhythm and the seasons…that keeps you healthy being a farmer.” When bodily capacities align with material flows, relational supports, and ethical meanings, regenerative systems can stabilize; when the body is overextended, practice becomes brittle.
5.Feedback and Adaptation
Beyond maintenance, regenerative farming required farmers to remain adaptable—physically, mentally, and ecologically. This phase was defined not by stability, but by responsiveness: to changing weather, evolving ecosystems, labor disruptions, and market fluctuations.
Regarding ecological barriers, Judy explained, “…we just had a big drought year, and the year before we had a big flood year…unpredictability…we needed to be resilient to both.” Achilles observed, “You have to recognize that the climate is changing, and that you have to adapt to that.” Carter elaborated planning challenges: “You make decisions based off of past patterns and the patterns don't hold true anymore. So how do you make planting decisions when out of the blue you can take a hard freeze a month after your last frost date?” Rather than following static models, farmers emphasized ongoing experimentation, ecological feedback, and collective learning. As Achilles, said, “There's a depth to it that we really appreciate and have fun experimenting...” Adaptation was not framed not as failure, but as integral to regenerative success.
This study demonstrates that regenerative agriculture in New England is not a fixed model of technical best practices, but a dynamic and relational process shaped by land access, bodily labor, social networks, and material improvisation. Farmers do not simply adopt RA—they build it, piece by piece, through lived negotiation with constraints and commitments. Regeneration, as practiced by the 43 farmers in this study, emerged not through templates, but through situated knowledge, emotional investment, and persistent adaptation.
However, these practices are fragile when misaligned with structural realities. Insecure tenure, labor scarcity, somatic exhaustion, and lack of infrastructure repeatedly interrupted even the most committed efforts. Farmers spoke candidly about the personal costs of sustaining regenerative systems without adequate support. Despite this, many continued through mutual aid, cooperative exchange, and ecological attunement—resources powerful but often undervalued in conventional policy frameworks.
The findings point clearly to the need for policy interventions that address not only ecological outcomes but the enabling conditions of practice. Based on farmer testimony and practice theory analysis, this study recommends:
- Flexible, outcome-based grants that support farmer-led experimentation and allow narrative, photo-based, or observational reporting instead of rigid benchmarks;
- Investment in shared infrastructure and peer-to-peer learning networks, including tool libraries, compost systems, mobile wash units, and community-managed knowledge hubs;
- Recognition of embodied labor and care work in grant criteria, with support for burnout mitigation, physical sustainability, and relational caregiving embedded in funding logic;
- Integration of RA into broader environmental, community-centric and resilience policies, particularly through procurement, public health initiatives, and community-centered planning.
These recommendations are not abstract suggestions—they emerge directly from farmers’ lived struggles and successes. They are aimed at closing the gap between values and viability, and at ensuring that regenerative agriculture does not rely on individual overextension or structural luck to survive.
Ultimately, sustaining regenerative agriculture in New England requires sustaining the farmers themselves—materially, socially, and somatically. It requires a policy landscape that sees beyond technique to the full ecology of practice: the land, the people, and the relations that make regeneration possible. By listening to farmers’ stories and learning from their grounded knowledge, this study offers a concrete foundation for designing agricultural futures that are not only resilient, but representative and enduring.
Education & Outreach Activities and Participation Summary
Participation Summary:
Presentation to Prospective Graduate Students (March 1, 2023)
Presented the grant proposal, study background, and research plan to admitted students considering Boston College’s Sociology Ph.D. program. Emphasized connections to environmental sociology, qualitative methods, and rural sociology to showcase departmental strengths.
Environmental Sociology Working Group (April 28, 2023)
Delivered an overview of the project’s research design and theoretical framework to BC’s Environmental Sociology Working Group. Introduced sociomaterial practice theory and outlined planned qualitative methods for studying regenerative agriculture in New England.
In-Class Presentations at Boston College
In Fall 2023, incorporated early project findings into SOCY1001-05 (Introductory Sociology), using regenerative agriculture case studies to link concepts such as environmental well-being, agricultural inequality, and practice theory.
Across four semesters (Fall 2023–Spring 2025), integrated research into SOCY3562-01 / ENVS3562 (Environmental Sociology I), using regenerative agriculture to examine intersections among environmental systems, labor, social networks, and sustainability.
Eastern Sociological Society Annual Meeting (March 7, 2025)
Presented findings from the project at the 2025 ESS Annual Meeting, highlighting sociomaterial practice theory, embodied labor, land access barriers, and cooperative social infrastructures in regenerative farming.
Planned Dissemination (Summer-Fall 2025)
Proposal to speak at the Common Ground Country Fair (Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association) in Fall 2025 has been submitted. Applications will also be submitted to upcoming Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) Summer Conferences.
I will send this report to participants, Northeast extension offices, NOFA, the Northeast Cover Crops Council, the New England Grazing Network, the Permaculture Association of the Northeast, Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust, and additional groups as identified. I will also volunteer to meet with these organizations to discuss or present the report and answer any questions. Extension agencies and sustainable agriculture organizations will be encouraged to draw upon this data to identify gaps in services that may otherwise be overlooked.
Policy factsheet produced: To enact effective, lasting change, this report also includes recommendations to policy makers and state representatives to help address barriers, and highlight opportunities, at the municipal and state levels. This can be found here Appendix F Policy Recommendation.
Project Outcomes
Project Outcomes
This project contributes to agricultural sustainability by documenting how regenerative agriculture is sustained—or strained—under real-world conditions of constraint. While it did not involve experimental interventions or economic modeling, the research highlights several key contributions across social, environmental, and economic dimensions:
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Social: The study identifies informal networks—peer mentorship, cooperative labor exchanges, and mutual aid—as essential but often invisible supports. By naming and describing these structures, the project provides a foundation for future investment in social infrastructure and cooperative models.
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Environmental: Farmers described developing intimate, embodied relationships with their land and adapting in real time to shifting ecological conditions. These insights reinforce the importance of flexibility, ecological attunement, and multispecies care in environmentally conscious farming.
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Economic: The research foregrounds how farmers make regenerative systems work despite financial and infrastructural precarity—often through creative reuse, shared tools, and non-market land access. While not economically quantified, these strategies suggest alternative, low-capital pathways toward viability.
Although the project did not lead to immediate farm-level changes, participants reported that reflecting on their experiences helped clarify their priorities and validated their struggles. Several expressed new interest in strengthening cooperative ties or seeking funding that aligns with their needs. The outcomes of this project will be shared widely with regional organizations, with the goal of informing more grounded and equitable policy, programming, and funding decisions across the Northeast.
Conducting this research profoundly deepened and reshaped my understanding of sustainable agriculture—not only in terms of what constitutes “regenerative” practice, but how such practices are made viable or untenable through everyday labor, material conditions, and social relations. Entering the project, I had a critical awareness of the limitations of technical and prescriptive models of regenerative agriculture, especially those circulating in policy, media, and NGO discourse. However, it was through sustained fieldwork—conducting 43 interviews and 23 farm visits across New England—that my understanding of RA evolved from a critique of dominant framings to a more situated, embodied, and empathetic comprehension of how regeneration is lived on the ground.
One of the most significant shifts in my awareness came through observing the emotional and somatic dimensions of farming. I came to understand sustainability not as a static goal, but as an ongoing negotiation between human intention, bodily capacity, ecological feedback, and institutional context. What many participants revealed was that even when ecological or ethical motivations were strong, sustainability faltered when land access, infrastructure, labor, or health were unstable. This challenged me to see regenerative agriculture not just as an environmental intervention, but as a relational and infrastructural condition—something that becomes possible only when a number of moving parts come into alignment, even temporarily.
Through these interactions, I also became more attuned to the forms of knowledge that are often devalued in academic or policy settings—specifically, embodied knowledge, sensory attunement, and what participants described as “feeling the land.” These insights have led me to reframe how I think about expertise: rather than seeing farmers as implementers of research-based practices, I now recognize them as theorists and practitioners in their own right, who continuously negotiate between ideals and constraints in deeply thoughtful and improvisational ways.
This research also altered how I think about the affective dimensions of sustainability. Fatigue, doubt, grief, and care were not peripheral to regenerative agriculture—they were central to how it was practiced and maintained. The recurring theme of emotional labor, in particular, revealed that burnout was not just a consequence of overwork, but of moral and affective overload—feeling responsible for land, community, and environmental shifts without the institutional support to carry that responsibility sustainably.
While my advisor provided theoretical grounding and helped refine the conceptual framework, it was through fieldwork that both of us came to engage more seriously with embodiment, labor, and affect as core components of sustainability. Our discussions increasingly focused on how sociomaterial theory could be expanded to account for bodily and emotional strain—not just as context, but as constitutive of agricultural practice.
This project has fundamentally shaped my research trajectory. My dissertation will further explore how farmers sustain their commitments to regeneration amid conditions of structural precarity, with a particular focus on embodiment, care, and more-than-human relations. I am also interested in building partnerships with organizations that support small and mid-sized farmers, to help co-develop frameworks that recognize sustainability as a practice of care, interdependence, and ongoing repair—rather than as a fixed outcome. Ultimately, this research taught me that sustainable agriculture is not only about the health of ecosystems, but also about the sustainability of the people asked to do that work.