AgEvidence Provides Data on Regenerative Agriculture in Priority Foodscapes

For users looking for quick answers to important questions, AgEvidence offers curated insights that use the data to address the relationship between regenerative agriculture practices and impacts to the environment specific to the US Midwest and Kenya. For instance, “Which practices best improve water quality?” or “What are the impacts of common cover crop use?” Users seeking to go beyond the curated insights can create their own, in-depth custom views of the data.  A map of all of the studies allows users to filter the data for cropping systems that are of particular interest, and draws attention to geographies with little data where more studies could be conducted. (Watch this tutorial video on how the navigate the AgEvidence dashboard.)

“Because there’s so much science on this topic, different people and organizations can have different literature they refer to, which can lead to different conclusions about the evidence,” said Stephen Wood, Ph.D., Senior Scientist for Agriculture and Food Systems at TNC. “With AgEvidence, we set out to build a comprehensive and easy-to-access data platform allowing for greater alignment among groups about the state of the evidence.”

Some key insights from AgEvidence are: 

U.S. Midwest

• Evidence shows that no-till leads to increased carbon storage in surface soils and lower nitrous oxide emissions.
• Both reduced tillage and cover crops benefit water quality.
• Targeted fertilizer management and reduced tillage benefit crop yields.
• The long-term impacts of cover crops are difficult to assess because most of the studies in the database are from less than five years.

Kenya

• Intercropping reduces weed pressures and improves crop yields.
• No-tillage and organic soil amendments benefit crop health and productivity.
• Organic soil amendments lead to increased soil carbon, but is also associated with increased nitrogen emissions.

Going Deeper with AgEvidence Data

For those interested in going beyond the statistical capabilities of the tool, raw data can be exported for formal scientific analyses. For instance, Emma Fuller, director of sustainability science at Granular, wanted to explore in more depth the relationship between tillage and corn yields.

“Reviewing the data table in AgEvidence of the interaction between tillage and corn yields, it seemed like some of the biggest differences in treatment effect had baseline yields that looked on the lower end of what we observe in the field,” Fuller said. “Pulling out the data and grouping into yield bins—indeed it does seem like there’s an interaction between baseline yields and tillage effect.” This highlights an opportunity for further research.

AgEvidence was made possible by support from the Science for Nature and People Partnership, Craig and Susan McCaw Foundation, Nestlé Purina, Walmart.org, the China Global Conservation Fund, the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research and Amazon Web Services.