How family farmers are working to get federal support for regenerative agriculture

Every five years, Congress’s $1 trillion Farm Bill funds the agricultural industry. A coalition of farmers and companies are campaigning to get the bill to support regenerative farming—and prioritize family farmers over large-scale agribusiness.

Wayne Swanson, who owns a 32-acre family farm in Henry County, Georgia, is trying to persuade his fellow farmers to rethink long-held beliefs about their trade. “We’ve been trained since kids [to think] that farms were places with big, huge silos, and 1,000 acres,” Swanson says. But his philosophy is that less is more: The less farmers disturb the soil, the more produce they’ll get from it. The fewer synthetic chemicals they spray, the more nutritious the food. The less money spent, the more money made. And it’s all accomplishable on smaller plots of land.

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