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On a tour of Island Grown Initiative’s farm, regenerative agriculture comes into focus — from living roots to low-till fields.
On an afternoon last July, I joined 30-plus Island community members in Island Grown Initiative’s Community Garden to begin a regenerative farm tour of the organization’s 42-acre property in Vineyard Haven. Some tour-goers showed up in scuffed Blundstones and faded blue jeans; others in Ralph Lauren’s newest Oak Bluffs-inspired clothing line. IGI staff introduced themselves and explained their roles. Noli Taylor, co-executive director, opened with a land acknowledgement: these grounds are the ancestral and contemporary home of the Wampanoag, present here for over 10,000 years. “Indigenous food ways have guided the regenerative farming movement” she said. “This traditional way of thinking about food production leads to flourishing.”
The first thing I notice when I step out into the fields is how quiet it is. I hear the chickens clucking in the nearby coop, and the low whistle of a breeze blowing the warm air through my hair. The fields are full of green, as far as the eye can see, but there’s less equipment buzzing across them, and that’s no accident. Over the last five years, IGI has shifted to a regenerative approach to farming — one that has brought the soil back to life, so that it naturally retains moisture, cycles nutrients, and suppresses weeds — reducing the need for heavy machinery.
Regenerative farming seeks to work in harmony with nature — not against it. Instead of depleting resources in the ways that many modern farms still do, it strengthens soil health, supports biodiversity, and restores ecosystems. Andrew Woodruff, regenerative agriculture consultant, shows us photographs of the soil from five years ago. It appeared hard, brown, and dry. Today, holding fresh samples, we could see — and feel — a vibrant, living soil. The difference is dramatic.
Andrew explains the five principles of regenerative agriculture — livestock integration, year-round root maintenance, soil covering, minimization of soil disturbance, and maximization of biodiversity. The tour, he says, would show us how IGI puts each principle into practice, offering a look at regenerative agriculture in action.
Integrate Livestock
We follow Andrew to the chicken coop. We can hear the flock clucking inside, though most stay tucked away out of sight — only one curious chicken appears at the entrance to inspect our group. Andrew explains the first principle of regenerative farming: the importance of rotating animals through different pastures. The manure the animals leave behind as they graze acts as natural fertilizer, and as livestock are moved to different areas of the farm, grazed areas get time to rest and regenerate. The result is healthier soil and more nutrient cycling.
Maintain Living Roots Year-Round
From the chicken coop, we make our way over to the clover crop. A low mat of white clover spreads across a plot, forming a living groundcover. I’d always thought of farming as being seasonal; I had no idea that the soil should have plants growing in it year round, even in winter. But it turns out that maintaining living roots year round, like those produced by this clover crop, keeps the soil alive and productive instead of letting it sit, which can degrade its health.
Keep Soil Covered (But Not With Plastic!)
Our next stop is the “You Pick” fields, where IGI’s Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) participants come weekly to pick their own locally grown produce. I’ve been an avid CSA member for the past three years, and it’s a highlight of my week to come out to the fields and reconnect with where my food comes from. Here, Noli shares a vision for a plastic-free farming future. “Single-use plastics are often used on organic farms that avoid herbicides, but still generate waste through plastic,” she says, explaining that on many organic farms, single-use plastics are used as mulch to suppress weeds, conserve moisture, regulate soil temperature, and support drip irrigation — helping farmers grow crops without chemical herbicides. But these single-use plastics break down into microplastics, contaminating soil and water — resources that plants and livestock share. These microplastics enter our food, and then our bodies. For this reason, Noli says, “our farmers are finding ways to reduce plastics in organic and low-till systems,” using living mulches or cover crops such as clover and rye, for example. These plants grow alongside or between crops and provide similar benefits to those offered by plastic mulch. IGI has even transplanted seedlings of several crops — including brassicas and tomatoes — directly into beds of established perennial white clover.
Minimizing Soil Disturbance
As we move on to the greenhouse, a large open-air structure I’d long wondered about during my weekly visits to the farm, Tim Connelly, the farm’s director, tells us that the farm is currently moving away from hydroponic growing (where plants are grown without soil, in nutrient-rich water) toward soil bed farming. “Hydroponics requires more plastic, energy, and labor. Soil beds don’t. They’re low on utilities, lower on labor, while also enabling year-round growing,” he says. I snap a quick photo of the last of the hydroponic lettuce. It’s an impressive, technologically advanced system, and I find myself admiring the neat rows of wooden soil beds, where I spot ripe tomatoes growing on the vine.
Regenerative farming means working in harmony with nature — not against it.
Our final stop is the fields behind the greenhouse. Here, Andrew talks about reducing tillage across the farm. Farmers have long used tilling — the practice of turning or loosening soil — to prepare fields for planting. But, Andrew explains, “Tilling collapses the soil and reduces nutrients; plants suffer, systems shut down.”
In collaboration with organizations such as the American Farmland Trust, in a reduced-tillage cohort of eight farms across New England, IGI has developed ways to grow food with less soil disruption. Andrew himself invented a strip-tillage machine now used by farms throughout Massachusetts. His invention uses a custom-made narrow strip tiller to enable planting into killed cover crop stands — cover crops that have been intentionally terminated to leave a protective layer of plant material on the surface, eliminating the need for additional mulch around the narrow planting strips produced by the tiller.
Unlike the wide, soil-flipping plows most of us envision when we think of farming, IGI’s strip tiller is surprisingly minimal. Mounted to the back of a small tractor, it resembles a metal bar outfitted with a few narrow blades that slice clean planting lanes through clover and cover crops. Each pass opens only four to eight inches of soil — just enough for planting — while the rest of the soil stays covered and undisturbed.
Island Grown Initiative has spent the last decade experimenting with reduced- and no- tillage systems, seeing major improvements in soil health as a result. Indeed, standing in the field on this farm tour, we could see regenerative farming in action, the efforts that go into caring for this soil rather than breaking it apart. From a distance, the strip tiller doesn’t appear to disturb the land so much as trace lines through it.
During our tour, Noli notes that, “peer-to-peer, farmer-to-farmer learning is powering the regenerative agriculture movement.” IGI’s experiments in soil health, strip-tillage, and living mulches are already influencing farms across New England and beyond. One current example is the American Farmland Trust’s biochar trial, a three-year, side-by-side study comparing conventional tillage methods to IGI’s clover living mulch planting system, enhanced with biochar. Researchers, students, and farmers are paying attention — the work done here has the potential to reshape farming practices nationwide.
Our tour ends back in the Community Garden, where we gather around a picnic table full of farm-grown snacks and refreshments. I look around at smiling community members as they chat and enjoy fresh produce in the green garden under the midsummer sun.
What You Can Do
IGI plans to offer more tours this coming season. For details on joining or volunteering, check their website and social media.
