Most people never think about soil, and it decides everything else in farming. Regenerative Organic Certified® puts soil health at the center of its first pillar for a reason: without measurable soil improvement, nothing we say about regenerative farming holds up.
Here's what soil health means under the certification, how we build it at Teaberry, and what our numbers show.
What Soil Health Is
Healthy soil is alive. A single teaspoon holds more microbes than there are people on Earth, all working with plant roots: breaking down organic matter, cycling nutrients, building structure, and storing carbon. Bacteria, fungi, archaea, protists, nematodes, earthworms, and arthropods each have a job.
Several specific properties define healthy soil:
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Soil organic matter (SOM). The share of the soil made of living and once-living material. SOM feeds the microbial community, holds water, and stores carbon. Most farm soils run between 1 and 6% SOM, and productive soils usually fall between 3 and 6%. There's no single healthy number, because the right range depends on soil type. A 2016 PASA study of organic vegetable farms in and around Pennsylvania found an average of 3.3%.
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Strong aggregate structure. Crumbly, granular soil that holds together without compacting, so water, roots, and microorganisms can move through it. Fungal hyphae and bacterial compounds bind the particles together.
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Diverse microbiology. Many species of bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms working together. Mycorrhizal fungi link plant roots into networks that move water and nutrients. Heavy tillage breaks these networks apart, and minimal disturbance lets them rebuild.
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Strong water-holding capacity. Soil high in organic matter holds more water than depleted soil, so rain soaks in instead of running off, and plants have moisture to draw on through dry spells.
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Active nutrient cycling. Microbial activity makes nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and trace minerals available to plants. Regular synthetic fertilizer bypasses this system and can suppress it. Regenerative practices rebuild it.
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Low compaction. Roots grow deep and water soaks in when heavy machinery and constant grazing haven't packed the soil down.
Soil and Carbon: A Working Farm's Climate Contribution
Soil holds about 2,500 billion tonnes of carbon, roughly 3.3 times what's in the atmosphere and 4.5 times what's stored in all living things. Among the carbon stores that actively cycle through land, air, and sea, only the ocean holds more. How farms treat soil has a real effect on how much of that carbon stays in the ground.
Over the last century, heavy tillage and synthetic nitrogen fertilizer have released large amounts of stored soil carbon. Tillage exposes organic matter to oxygen and speeds its breakdown. Synthetic nitrogen disrupts the soil's carbon and nitrogen cycles and weakens the mycorrhizal fungi that build long-term carbon stocks. Studies estimate that cultivated soils have lost a large share of their original organic carbon since industrial farming began, and runoff from bare, tilled fields carries soil and pollutants into our watersheds.
Regenerative organic practices turn this around through four practices working together:
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Cover crops and living roots. Plants pull carbon dioxide from the air and send part of it through their roots into the soil, where microorganisms turn it into organic matter. Living cover keeps that work going through more of the year.
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Minimal soil disturbance. Less tillage protects existing organic matter from oxidation and keeps the mycorrhizal networks that build deep, stable carbon. The certification requires minimal disturbance wherever possible.
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Integrated rotational grazing. Well-managed grazing on perennial pasture grows deeper, denser roots than continuous grazing does. Deep roots put carbon where it stays longest.
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Diverse perennial plantings. Trees in silvopasture and agroforestry store carbon in their wood and feed the soil through leaf litter, root turnover, and woody debris.
The combined effect is real, and it varies. In one study, Mosier and colleagues compared 5 pairs of side-by-side ranches and found that adaptive multi-paddock grazing held 13% more soil carbon, down to 1 meter, than conventional grazing. Other studies report different numbers depending on soil type, climate, and management, so no single figure fits every farm. At Teaberry, our soil tests track soil organic matter as one of the main signs of this work.
What the Certification Requires for Soil Health
The soil health pillar requires several practices and benchmarks:
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Cover cropping between cash crops or in any rotation period when ground would otherwise be bare.
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Minimal soil disturbance. No-till or low-till methods where possible. Tillage is allowed only where necessary, and it has to decrease over time.
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Diverse plantings and rotations that break pest cycles and feed different parts of the microbial community.
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No synthetic pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers. This comes from USDA Organic and is foundational.
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Integrated livestock where appropriate, adding manure, hoof action, and well-managed grazing.
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Soil testing at a lab when a farm first applies and every 3 years after that. We choose to test our soils annually.
The standard has 3 tiers. Bronze, Silver, and Gold set how much of a farm's producing land must be certified, from part of the farm at Bronze to all of it at Gold, and each tier adds more required regenerative practices. The framework requires soil testing when a farm first applies and every 3 years after that. At Teaberry, we test every year, because a yearly look gives us more data to decide what to change on the farm each season.
What We Do at Teaberry
Several practices that work together:
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No synthetic inputs. Fertility comes from rotational livestock manure, sheep wool mulch, comfrey teas, finished compost, cover crops, and forest leaf litter where the system supports it.
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Cover cropping in apothecary beds and rotational pastures. When a bed is between crops or a paddock is resting, we keep something living in it. Our mixes often include clover, rye, vetch, oats, buckwheat, daikon radish, and mustards, and each has a job: fixing nitrogen, breaking compaction with deep taproots, or holding moisture.
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Minimal tillage. We keep soil disturbance to a minimum across the farm, and where apothecary beds need soil work, we use no-till methods that keep the structure intact.
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Integrated rotational grazing. Highland cattle, Valais Blacknose sheep, Mangalitsa pigs, and laying hens move through the property in a planned sequence. Each species contributes to soil building in its specific way.
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Wool mulch in the apothecary garden. Valais wool holds moisture, adds nutrients, evens out soil temperature, and deters pests, so the beds need fewer off-farm inputs.
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Forest leaf litter and woody debris. Where the system supports it, we let decomposition do its work. Forest soil builds itself when the canopy stays intact, and the leaf cycle runs uninterrupted.
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Annual soil testing across representative paddocks and beds: SOM, pH, macronutrients, micronutrients, cation exchange capacity, and a structure assessment.
What Our Numbers Show
The work builds slowly. Year over year, managed pastures and apothecary beds show:
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Rising soil organic matter. Steady increases across the paddocks and beds under regenerative management the longest.
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Better aggregate structure. You can see it in soil samples: soil that crumbles cleanly and holds together without compacting.
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Better water infiltration. In heavy rain, our managed pastures absorb more water and shed less runoff than when we started.
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More diverse plant communities. Our pastures and understory now hold more legumes, more forbs, and more plants that support pollinators.
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More visible biology. Earthworm numbers are noticeably higher in soils under longer regenerative management, and mycorrhizal indicators in our samples are stronger.
These are the trends regenerative organic practice predicts, and we're monitoring them in the field.
What We Are Still Learning
Regenerative work has no single recipe. Every farm, soil type, and climate shapes it differently, and we're still learning what works on this property, with its own soil texture, slopes, drainage, and exposure. Some practices that work elsewhere haven't worked as well here, and some we developed for this land have done better than we expected.
Our commitment is to keep paying attention: to keep testing the soil, watching what the land does, and talking with other regenerative growers and researchers, including the Rodale Institute, our certifying bodies, and the wider network of farms and producers doing this work. We respond to what we learn instead of locking in what we think we know.
Soil health is generational work, built through daily practice.
Sources
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SARE (Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education). "Building Soils for Better Crops." Read source.
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Cornell Cooperative Extension. Soil organic matter guidance for productive soils. (URL to add)
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PASA Sustainable Agriculture. Soil health study of organic vegetable farms, 2016. (URL to add)
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Lal, R. "Soil carbon sequestration impacts on global climate change and food security." Science 304:1623. 2004. Read study.
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Mosier, S., et al. "Adaptive multi-paddock grazing enhances soil carbon and nitrogen stocks and stabilization through mineral association in southeastern U.S. grazing lands." Journal of Environmental Management 288:112409. 2021. Read study.
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Regenerative Organic Alliance. "Framework for Regenerative Organic Certified®," version 4.1, effective June 27, 2023. Read framework.
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USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service. "Soil Health ABCs." Read source.
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