Matthew Harrison, Climate Resilience Leader, Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture, University of Tasmania, 16 March 2026

It’s widely promoted for its environmental benefits. But how does it actually affect farm profitability and greenhouse gas emissions? 

Evidence remains limited. One reason is that regenerative agriculture is usually presented as a bundle of practices—including adaptive multi-paddock (AMP) grazing, diverse pastures, silvopasture, minimal cultivation and reduced synthetic fertiliser use—making it difficult to determine which components drive outcomes. 

In a new study published in Nature Food, we examined how three factors—pasture species composition, initial soil organic carbon (SOC) and grazing management (AMP vs conventional)—influence SOC accrual, farm GHG emissions, production and profitability. 

Several insights emerged:

1. Pasture identity mattered more than diversity. Pasture type—not species richness—was the dominant driver of pasture productivity, SOC accrual and carbon dioxide removals. 
2. Preventing SOC loss improved profitability. Farms with historically higher SOC stocks tended to be more profitable, highlighting the importance of recognising and rewarding long-term stewardship of natural capital. 
3. SOC gains depended strongly on starting conditions. The largest SOC increases occurred on the most degraded soils with the lowest initial carbon stocks.
4. Productivity outweighed carbon prices. Farm profit was far more sensitive to pasture productivity than carbon markets. Meat and wool values exceeded carbon revenues by more than an order of magnitude.
5. Rainfall variability dominated economic and environmental outcomes. Seasonal rainfall influenced pasture production, SOC dynamics, emissions, and profit more strongly than pasture diversity or grazing management. 
6. Drought management matters. Many farms were overstocked during droughts, accelerating perennial pasture loss and SOC decline. Sustainable stocking rates should be calibrated to production during climatic adversity. 
7. Management trade-offs abound. Lower-intensity grazing with shorter rest periods often delivered higher profitability. However, AMP grazing generally promoted greater pasture growth, SOC accrual, and emissions abatement, performing favourably when productivity, profit, and emissions were considered together. 
8. Methane remains the dominant farm emissions source. Even where SOC increased substantially, enteric methane remained the largest contributor to farm GHG emissions—highlighting the need for whole-farm emissions accounting, not SOC changes alone. 

The bottom line

Improving soil carbon and reducing emissions does not always improve profit. Trade-offs between economic, agronomic and environmental outcomes are inevitable. Designing resilient, low-emissions farming systems requires clear objectives, realistic expectations, and intentional balancing of productivity, profitability, and environmental outcomes.

The full paper is available here.