The public-private initiative Restore Colorado is helping finance regional regenerative agriculture through partnerships with restaurants in Boulder. The program is a collaboration between Boulder County, sustainable agriculture experts Mad Agriculture, and non-profit Zero Foodprint, who pioneered the model in California.

In a region seeing the impacts of the climate crisis nearly daily, from destructive wildfires to extreme drought, the need for food systems solutions “cannot be ignored,” says Christian Herrmann of Boulder County’s Office for Sustainability, Climate Action & Resilience (OSCAR). While many scientists agree that regenerative agriculture is a necessary tool for fighting climate change, the cost of transitioning to these methods can be an obstacle for many farmers.

Restore Colorado seeks to ease the financial burden of conservation practices, like compost application. They hope that this will make the adoption of regenerative methods possible for farmers in the community “whose profit margins are already razor-thin,” Herrmann tells Food Tank.

To raise funds, Restore Colorado is working with restaurants who donate 1 percent of each bill toward grants for local farmers and ranchers. This partnership embodies Zero Foodprint’s table-to-farm vision, which imagines a circular food economy with restaurant diners directly funding regenerative agriculture on the farms growing their food.

Read the full article about sustainable agriculture by Georgie Hurst at Food Tank.