Florida Farmers Turn to Regenerative Agriculture After $3.2 Billion Freeze Losses

As the supervisor of dune plantings at our coastal Florida community, I was keenly aware of the rare February 2026 freeze. Plants that generally resist drought, wind, and salt were burnt by the 26°F temperatures. Luckily, most of our east coast plants survived and have returned to robust health after a series of late summer rains.

What is Regenerative Agriculture?

Renew. Repair. Reinvigorate. Restore. Revive. Each of these verbs helps us to understand what regenerative agriculture practices mean.

Soil is not static: its composition is changeable, based on the weather, which organisms constitute it, which plants grow in it, and other variables. It’s a complex living ecosystem teeming with microbes, nutrients, and other organisms. Healthy soil contains everything necessary for plants to thrive.

Healthy soils are the foundation for agricultural development, food security, ecosystem functions, biodiversity, and resilience to climate change. Why is this?

• Soils provide food for urban and peri-urban population.
• Soils can reduce pollution, extreme weather events and temperatures in cities.
• Soils help boost human health and well-being.
• Soil health is a good driver for better city waste management.

By building organic matter into soils, regenerative agriculture produces stronger yields and nutrient-rich crops. It leads to resiliency — diminishing erosion and runoff, improving water quality on and off the farm, and helping farms to better withstand climate change impacts like flooding and drought.

Regenerative Agriculture: It’s a Process

Protection that improves yields, helps livelihoods, and builds resilience: these are all common results from regenerative agriculture. Strategies like reduced tillage and increased biological diversity help soil retain water, withstand extreme weather and remain productive. Improvements to soil erosion, loss of soil organic matter, and water quality can be a starting place.

Many farmers who make the transition and see regenerative agriculture as a long-term investment strategy for reducing risk are experiencing positive results. For example, Florida Crystals is now farming 10,000 of its 194,500 acres in Palm Beach County regeneratively.

Then again, food systems are embedded in and interact with other systems—such as environmental, economic, and political systems—and are influenced by a range of local, regional, and global actors. The University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences public outreach program works with farmers to determine soil type and how to enrich it for optimal health.

Yes, as Pepitone notes, farmers transitioning to regenerative systems face years of experimentation with possible initial weaker crop yields, the need to purchase new equipment, heat or moisture stress on cover crops, non-cash plants that protect soil between cash crop plantings, and other transitional factors.

Lots of farmers who are making the switch to regenerative agriculture also foreground healthy and fair conditions for farmworkers. A new $700 million USDA pilot program encourages practices that improve long-term stability. For the USDA pilot program to have its greatest impact, the voices of farmers, food producers, Indigenous land caretakers, and workers must not be ignored.

Respect for workers is part of a larger picture of collaboration with soil and local ecosystems, acknowledging the power of the environment to affect crop yields.