Feeding The World: What 1,192 Organizations Tell Us About the Future of Farming

The 2025 Regenerative Agriculture Industry Map, released by HowGood in partnership with Kiss the Ground, documents a remarkable shift in how we think about food and farming. The numbers tell a story of exponential growth: from a single organization using the term “regenerative agriculture” publicly in 2005 to 1,192 organizations across 49 countries by 2024. Last year alone saw 275 new organizations adopt regenerative terminology—a 30% increase that represents the highest single-year adoption rate ever recorded.

But this isn’t just about numbers on a chart. This is about a fundamental reimagining of our relationship with the land, with food, and with the farmers who feed us.

From Kitchen Table to Global Renaissance 

The story behind this mapping project is worth understanding. It began simply: Ethan Soloviev, Chief Innovation Officer at HowGood, sitting at his kitchen table late at night, searching for anyone publicly using the term “regenerative agriculture” and noting when they started using it. His goal was straightforward—make the movement visible, track its growth, understand its potential to transform how we think about food and farming.

What he found was profound. People around the world weren’t just looking to do less harm—they were hungry to contribute to something positive. We’re all feeling and seeing the volatile effects of climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss. Regenerative agriculture offers a different path forward: a way to eat, consume, even indulge, while uplifting communities, restoring ecosystems, and addressing the climate crisis.

This year’s edition, strengthened by Kiss the Ground’s partnership, represents a deeper, more comprehensive look at where the movement stands. The map now reflects not just numbers but a maturing ecosystem—farms, brands, nonprofits, investors—all signaling that this is a movement worth joining.

What the Data Actually Shows

The most significant finding in this year’s report might surprise some: farms now represent the largest organizational category at 415 participants (34.8%), surpassing Consumer Packaged Goods companies (394, or 33.1%) for the first time. This matters enormously. It means regenerative agriculture isn’t just a marketing concept or a corporate buzzword—it’s taking root where it needs to most: on actual working farms.

The broader ecosystem tells an equally important story. Service organizations (180), nonprofits (109), and investment firms (94) complete the picture, highlighting that regenerative agriculture is building the support infrastructure needed for real transformation. When you have farmers adopting practices, companies sourcing regeneratively grown ingredients, investors funding the transition, and service providers offering technical support, you have the makings of a self-reinforcing system.

The geographic spread is notable too—49 documented countries with the United States showing significant representation (67 organizations, 24.4%), followed by the United Kingdom (37 organizations, 9.8%). The true global distribution likely reflects even greater participation than English-language focused research can capture.

Perhaps most telling is the financial scale. Among organizations with disclosed revenues, 43 exceed $1 billion annually. This isn’t fringe activity—this is mainstream business recognizing that regenerative agriculture creates value propositions across business scales, from small local operations to global supply chains.

The Organizations Behind the Map

Understanding who’s doing this work matters as much as the data itself.

HowGood is a sustainability research company that built the world’s largest database of agricultural emission factors—more than 90,000 of them. They power large-scale product foot printing for the food industry, working with leading brands, suppliers, retailers, and foodservice providers to support climate reporting, supply chain decarbonization, and credible environmental claims. Their work provides the measurement infrastructure that makes regenerative agriculture trackable and verifiable at scale.

Kiss the Ground takes a different but complementary approach. As an audience-supported 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded in 2013, they’ve inspired millions through storytelling, education, and partnerships. Their mission centers on promoting healthy soil as a viable solution to the wellness, water, and climate crises. They understand something crucial: movements need more than data—they need narrative, connection, and community.

Together, these organizations are doing something essential: making visible what was previously scattered and difficult to perceive. By aggregating organizational commitments across sectors and geographies, they’re revealing a movement’s scale and momentum that participants might otherwise experience only in fragments.

A Critical Question: Quality vs. Quantity

Here’s where we need to be honest. The methodology of this mapping project focuses specifically on public adoption of regenerative agriculture terminology rather than attempting to assess the quality or authenticity of practices. Organizations are included if they publicly state their involvement with regenerative agriculture, regardless of the depth or scope of their commitment.

This is both the project’s strength and its limitation. The strength lies in creating an inclusive framework that acknowledges the significance of public commitment. When organizations—particularly corporations—include regenerative agriculture in their public communications, it typically represents internal discussions, board approvals, and strategic decisions to align with the movement’s goals.

The limitation is clear: not everyone using the term means the same thing by it. As Karen Rodriguez, Chief Operating Officer of Kiss the Ground, notes in her message accompanying the report: “This movement spans a spectrum: some approaches bring deep ecological and social benefit, while others risk diluting the meaning if they are not grounded in integrity.”

This is the tension at the heart of any scaling movement. Growth is necessary—we need regenerative practices on 30-50% of agricultural land to generate meaningful climate and ecological impact. But growth without integrity risks turning “regenerative” into just another marketing term, another promise made and broken to farmers who’ve heard it all before.

What These Organizations Can and Must Do

The question facing HowGood, Kiss the Ground, and the broader regenerative agriculture community is this:

How do we scale with integrity?

1. First, continue making the movement visible. Visibility serves multiple strategic functions. It helps early adopters see they’re part of something larger. It creates competitive pressure for organizations that haven’t yet made commitments. It signals to investors that this represents genuine market momentum. It shows farmers considering transition that they won’t be alone.
2. Second, develop robust standards and verification systems. As more organizations claim regenerative practices, we need clear, science-based standards that distinguish genuine ecological regeneration from incremental improvements labeled with ambitious language. This doesn’t mean perfect practices from day one—transition takes time—but it does mean transparent, verifiable commitments to continuous improvement.
3. Third, build the support infrastructure farmers actually need. Service organizations, technical assistance providers, financial mechanisms for transition periods—these are essential. Farmers can’t afford to experiment with their livelihoods. The movement needs to provide real economic pathways, not just philosophical frameworks.
4. Fourth, connect the entire value chain. The data shows participation across farms, brands, retailers, investors, and service providers. These connections need to become stronger and more intentional. When a major food company commits to sourcing regeneratively, they need to work directly with farms, provide fair pricing, offer long-term contracts, and invest in the transition. Otherwise, the commitment rings hollow.
5. Fifth, influence policy. Individual farm and corporate commitments matter, but systemic change requires policy support. Research funding, technical assistance programs, payment for ecosystem services, crop insurance reform, anti-trust enforcement—these policy levers can either accelerate or impede regenerative agriculture’s growth.
6. Sixth, tell better stories. Kiss the Ground understands this: people need more than data to change behavior. They need narratives that connect regenerative agriculture to their own lives, values, and hopes for the future. They need to see farmers as the heroes they are, not as problems to be solved by corporate efficiency.

The Path Forward

The exponential growth documented in this report—from 1 organization in 2005 to 1,192 in 2024—represents genuine momentum. The hockey stick curve that investors look for is there. The question is what we do with it.

As the project transitions toward community-driven documentation, with organizations self-reporting their involvement, the movement faces a critical juncture. Will increased participation dilute the meaning of regenerative agriculture, or will the community hold itself accountable to practices that genuinely restore soil health, sequester carbon, enhance biodiversity, and support farmer livelihoods?

The answer depends on choices these organizations and this broader community make right now. We can scale with integrity, building verification systems and support infrastructure as we grow. We can ensure that farmers transitioning to regenerative practices receive fair compensation and long-term support, not just marketing language and empty promises. We can use the momentum shown in this map to push for policy changes that break up agricultural monopolies and create genuine economic opportunities for regenerative farmers.

Or we can let “regenerative” become another buzzword, another way for large corporations to greenwash their operations while farmers continue struggling under the same broken economics we documented in our previous article about Adam Chappell and his fellow Arkansas farmers.

The mapping project gives us visibility. What we do with that visibility—how we steward this movement as it scales—will determine whether regenerative agriculture becomes a genuine transformation of our food system or just another missed opportunity.

The potential is clear. The growth is real. The question is whether we have the collective will to build a movement that truly serves the land, the farmers, and the future we all depend on. How can you help? Contact us today.