In early 2024, the MESA team held a workshop in Colombia. The discussion in the room framed the main similarities and differences in relation to nature for each of three agricultural approaches: organic agriculture, agroecology and regenerative agriculture. 

Regenerative agriculture, organic agriculture, and agroecology approaches share many concerns and offer solutions that seem similar. What does each approach offer that the others do not? And what makes one approach more prominent than another in certain geographic, economic, or historical contexts? Do they compete for space, or does their coexistence allow them to collaborate and advance their shared goals on a larger scale?

This essay highlights how AE, OA and RA, despite their differences, propose and promote methods and systems that prioritize soil health and the recycling of nutrients and biomass, as important elements of more natural agricultural systems. These areas could be fertile ground for governments and other actors to generate incentives and support for producers, communities and companies without narrowly specifying which path they wish to follow to advance towards sustainability; organic, regenerative or agroecological.