Defining Regenerative Agriculture
Regenerative agriculture means choosing context-specific farming practices that leave the land measurably better each year. Compared to a degenerative system — with soil erosion, nutrient depletion, and decreasing yields — regenerative farming actively builds more organic matter in the soil, a functioning soil microbiome, increased biodiversity, better water cycling, and resilient livelihoods. We work with nature, within our community, to earn enough to support ourselves and our team.
Regeneration is verifiable. We are pursuing formal certifications, but we want to demonstrate regeneration first through what you can observe: improvement to the land and the food it produces. When you visit our farm, you can see it in the pastures, smell it in the soil, taste it in the eggs. We're at the beginning of this work, and we're honest about that. Regeneration is not a state we've reached; it's a process we've committed to.
Decision-Making with Holistic Management
Every farm runs on decisions — about land, livestock, money, and time. We use Holistic Management as the framework to make them. Developed by Allan Savory, Holistic Management is a systems-thinking approach that tests each decision against the whole of what a farm is managing toward — not just profit or production, but the land, the people, and the long-term resource base together.
In practice, we've defined ours through what's called a holistic context: a description of the quality of life we want, the forms of production that support it, and the future resource base we need to sustain both. Every significant decision on the farm gets tested against that context. Does this move us toward what we've defined as important, or away from it?
Practising the Soil Health Principles
The five Soil Health Principles are the ecological foundation of how we farm. They come from soil science and have been adopted across regenerative agriculture worldwide. They are:
Minimise disturbance.
Soil is a living system. Tillage, synthetic inputs, and overgrazing disrupt the biological networks that make soil function. We aim to reduce all three — mechanical, chemical, and biological disturbance — across every enterprise on the farm.
Keep the soil covered.
Bare soil loses moisture, erodes, and heats up. We maintain ground cover through residue, living plants, or mulch wherever possible. This protects the soil surface and feeds the organisms beneath it.
Maintain living roots.
Living roots feed soil biology year-round. They pump carbon into the ground and support the microbial communities that cycle nutrients. We plan our rotations to keep roots in the soil for as much of the year as the Finnish climate allows.
Integrate livestock.
Animals are not separate from the land — they're part of how it functions. Grazing, when managed well, stimulates plant growth, distributes fertility, and breaks pest cycles. Livestock integration is central to how we design our system.
Increase diversity.
Monocultures are fragile. Diverse plant and animal communities are more resilient, more productive over time, and better at supporting ecosystem function. We aim for diversity in what we grow, what we graze, and how we structure our rotations.
Starting with Pasture-Raised Laying Hens
We chose to start with hens for a few reasons. First, they are a net positive for the land. They scratch, they forage, they distribute fertility across the pasture. They also generate a product – eggs – with consistent local demand and a short path from production to customer. Starting with one enterprise lets us build our management capacity before adding complexity. We want to understand how our pastures respond to grazing pressure, how our rotation works in practice, and what the land tells us before we introduce additional livestock or expand production.
