Regenerative Grazing in South America
Regenerative agriculture is a sustainable way to produce food, restore nature and combat climate change while storing carbon from the air in the soil.
Extreme weather events are rapidly increasing worldwide. Argentina has been dealing with the worst drought in 130 years over the last years. Millions of hectares are degraded: no grass, no water, no bugs, no life, thus no production and no carbon sequestration. This partially has to do with the conventional way of farming and grazing management, resulting in soil degradation. Regenerative agriculture can be a great solution to reverse soil degradation and shift towards regeneration.
Project Impacts
Climate & Environment
- Provides permanent food production
- Increases biodiversity
- Lower erosion due to improved soil
- Combat climate change by capturing and storing CO₂
Social & Economic
- Promotes the socio-economic growth of farmers and workers by providing climate finance, creating jobs, offering education, or building infrastructure
- Enhances the overall quality of life on the farm
Location: South America
Project Type:
Regenerative Agriculture
Project Details
Regenerative grazing is a sustainable farming practice that mimics the natural grazing patterns of wild herbivore herds. By strategically moving livestock across pastures, farmers can restore degraded land, improve soil health, and enhance biodiversity. This method involves simulating the behavior of wild herds, which are constantly on the move, densely packed against predators. The herd eats, tramples and fertilises patches of grassland for a few days before moving on. This allows the land to rest and recover, resulting in deeper root structures of the vegetation and increased microbial activity. Only when the land has recovered sufficiently, the herd will come back to eat, trample and fertilize it again.
This symbiotic relationship between animals and grasses has evolved over millions of years and is crucial for healthy grasslands. Unfortunately, many modern livestock systems operate in the opposite way, with continuous grazing and reliance on external feeding inputs. This can have devastating consequences, such as deforestation and soil degradation.
To successfully implement regenerative grazing, careful planning is essential. Farmers must determine where the animals will be, when they will graze, and for how long. Factors influencing that decision include, but are not limited to, climatic variables, weather, soil characteristics, and the number of people working on the farm. Some of the factors, like weather, are sometimes unpredictable and warrant changes to the grazing plans at short notice. The regenerative grazing practice and plan allow for these changes and to adapt to changing circumstances to optimally manage the vegetation available at the farm and the herd.
About the Project
South American Regenerative Agriculture (SARA programme) has been officially validated and registered by Verra, the world’s leading carbon credit certification body. With this achievement, SARA ranks among the first seven programmes globally to be approved under the new VM0042 methodology and is the first ever to be validated in Argentina, Paraguay, and Chile.
SARA is developed by Anthesis Group, and regenerative specialists Ruuts, with local partners Ovis 21 (Argentina), De Raiz (Paraguay) and Efecto Manada (Chile). SARA is one of the first large-scale carbon programmes in the region focused on restoring degraded rangelands through regenerative grazing practices. The programme already involves over 130 farms and 150,000 hectares and plans to expand to 500,000 regenerated hectares across South America, building a regional network that offers concrete, nature-based solutions to the climate crisis.
In its first monitoring period (2019 – 2023), SARA generated over 200,000 carbon removals (awaiting verification approval by Verra).
Dispute and Grievance Process
The SARA team is open to learn and wants to continuously improve. In case any dispute or grievance may arise during or due to the program implementation, please share these with [email protected], [email protected] or [email protected]. The procedure used by the SARA team to address the disputes and grievances is described in the document here. Whenever the first dispute or grievance is received, both the dispute/grievance as well as the resolution found shall be made publicly available, in accordance with the requirements of Verra’s Voluntary Carbon Standard.
Related Carbon Projects
Discover our Carbon Project Development Expertise and explore our Existing Carbon Projects.
