Welcome to the Regenerative Organic Hub’s Benchmarking Library! Benchmarking is the process of setting initial reference points for your farm and understanding the impact of farm management decisions. Benchmarking allows farmers to identify effective land management practices and make on-farm decisions that will regenerate their soil.
There are many reasons to establish a benchmark on your farm, but the goal is usually the same: it is to measure progress in key areas like carbon sequestration, water retention, and soil fertility. In a regenerative organic setting, benchmarks enable farmers to collaborate and share their stories on what works best, creating a community-driven model of continuous improvement.
Explore one of our curated step-by-step learning journeys, or scroll below to browse or search for benchmarking tools to support you wherever you are on your regenerative organic journey!
Learning Journeys
Our learning journeys are curated collections of educational content, designed to help you acquire knowledge and skills on a specific topic. To use the learning journeys to their full benefit, please follow along the steps detailed in each learning journey.
Start a learning journey and dive deeper into one of these regenerative organic topics:
Every tool in the Benchmarking Library below involves the discussion of one or more of the ecological processes. Below is a legend of icons to help you discover how each tool relates to the unique processes that are key characteristics of regenerative organic agriculture.
"The Regenerative Organic Certified (ROC) Soil Health and Land Management Pillar requires soil testing, both lab tests and field tests, every three years. This document provides guidance on the
requirements for those tests. Although soil testing is required, certification decisions will not be based on soil testing improvements or results."
This guide is designed to assist producers in the field with assessing root health, the rhizosphere, and legume nodulation. It provides key observations and evaluation techniques to help monitor soil and plant health.
This article describes the causes of soil compaction, the solutions to removing compaction from your fields, and how you can avoid causing more compaction down the line.
A baseline is a starting point or starting value. On a farm, it is the starting point before any modifications in farm management are made. Check out this guide for everything you need to know about baselines to get started!
"In the evolving landscape of regenerative agriculture, understanding the right metrics is vital for success. This article delves into the core 9 KPI metrics that every advisory business should track, including client satisfaction rates and crop yield improvements, while providing insights on how to accurately calculate them."
"McCain defines Regenerative agriculture as an ecosystem-based approach to farming that aims to improve farm resilience, crop yield and quality by improving soil health and water quality, optimizing water use, enhancing biodiversity, and reducing the impact of synthetic inputs."
Selecting sites for soil health monitoring helps you create a baseline to measure the impact of your regenerative organic efforts. Check out this resource to find out how we select sites in the Regenerative Organic Oats (ROO) Program and how you might be able to do the same on your farm.
The establishment of benchmark sites serves the critical purpose of setting initial reference points - allowing for the monitoring and comparison of various ecological processes over time. Use this guide to learn how to set up benchmarking sites.
