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New Initiative Bridges Gap Between High Standards and Farm Adoption
The Regenerative Organic Alliance (ROC) has launched a groundbreaking new program called “Journey to ROC” that aims to reduce greenwashing while dramatically scaling the adoption of regenerative agriculture practices worldwide. This strategic initiative comes at a critical time when consumer demand for verified sustainable products is outpacing the agricultural sector’s ability to deliver certified regenerative options.
“This is a major step forward for the global regenerative organic movement,” Christopher Gergen, CEO of the Regenerative Organic Alliance, stated in an exclusive interview. The program addresses a fundamental tension in sustainable agriculture: maintaining the highest certification standards while encouraging broader participation from farmers and food brands who may not immediately meet ROC’s rigorous requirements.
Bridging the Certification Gap
The Journey to ROC program represents a strategic partnership between ROC and RegenAgri, another regenerative certification body with less stringent standards. Farms and brands aspiring to achieve the coveted ROC Certification but currently falling short of its high threshold can now enter through RegenAgri certification, creating a clear pathway to eventual ROC status within three to five years.
“Farmers start their regenerative organic journeys from a lot of different places depending on their current agricultural practices,” explained Franco Costantini, RegenAgri CEO. “We need to meet the farmers where they are.” This approach acknowledges the practical realities of agricultural transition while maintaining the integrity of regenerative standards.
Addressing Market Challenges and Greenwashing Concerns
The regenerative agriculture movement has faced significant challenges with greenwashing and certification confusion, particularly as consumer interest in sustainable products has surged. With approximately a dozen different regenerative agriculture seals in the marketplace, ROC’s position as the most rigorous certification has sometimes limited its scale due to its high standards, including the requirement for organic farming as a baseline.
“We’ve got brands that want to get their supply chains on this path, and we never had a good answer for it,” Gergen acknowledged. “That left open the door of them going to a substandard verification. Now we’ve mitigated that.” The new program ensures that farms and CPG brands can remain within the ROC ecosystem even if they don’t immediately qualify for full certification.
Strategic Partnership Criteria and Data Integrity
ROC conducted extensive due diligence before selecting RegenAgri as its pathway partner. Critical non-negotiable factors included third-party verified data collection and transparent standards equivalent to ROC’s quality expectations. Organizations lacking third-party audit processes, such as Regenerified, were excluded from consideration.
“We needed to make sure that it was of the equivalent quality and transparency of our standard,” Gergen emphasized. “RegenAgri fits that bill. They’ve got very rigorous, transparent standards for soil health and animal welfare.” This careful partner selection process mirrors the strategic evolution seen in other industries where verification and transparency have become increasingly crucial for market credibility.
Key Differences and Complementary Strengths
One significant distinction between the two organizations lies in their approach to organic certification. While ROC requires organic farming as a baseline, RegenAgri does not mandate organic practices for its certification. “Organic is very important, but we also know that there are many farms that cannot be,” Costantini noted, highlighting the practical barriers some farmers face in transitioning to fully organic operations.
The partnership leverages complementary strengths: RegenAgri’s extensive global reach—certifying over 300,000 farms worldwide—combined with ROC’s reputation as the gold standard in regenerative certification. This synergy is particularly valuable in regenerative textiles, where RegenAgri has established dominance and ROC seeks to expand its presence.
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Market Incentives and Consumer Education
The program creates clear market incentives for participants. “The incentive is the market signal that people have recognized ROC Certification as the highest standard,” Gergen explained. “They are demanding more of it and are willing to pay a premium.” This premium pricing structure helps offset the costs of transitioning to regenerative practices, similar to how market dynamics influence employment patterns in other sectors experiencing transformation.
However, maintaining certification integrity remains paramount. Brands in the Journey to ROC program will display the RegenAgri stamp rather than the ROC certification mark, providing transparency about their current certification status while working toward the higher standard.
Global Expansion and Data Collaboration
The partnership significantly accelerates ROC’s international expansion plans. Gergen pointed to tens of thousands of RegenAgri Certified cotton farmers in Tanzania as potential candidates for future ROC certification. ROC has established an ambitious five-year goal of adding 100 ROC Certified brands in Europe using ingredients from European ROC Certified farms.
The organizations will also implement a data-sharing partnership, leveraging both organizations’ practice- and outcome-based approaches. “We need to know what is being done and what is achieved in such a way that we know what’s working, what’s not working and where we see more impact,” Costantini emphasized. This data-driven approach reflects the kind of technological sophistication increasingly required in modern agricultural management.
Industry Impact and Future Outlook
The initiative addresses fundamental challenges in regenerative agriculture certification, particularly the consumer confusion resulting from multiple certification standards. “If we can get a number of these high quality standards working with one another through this equivalency process,” Gergen noted, “it will become easier for farmers and a lot more straightforward for the industry.”
The program’s success could influence major retailers like Whole Foods Market, which currently doesn’t accept RegenAgri certification for front-of-package claims. The partnership between ROC and RegenAgri represents a significant step toward standardizing regenerative claims while maintaining the movement’s core principles of continuous improvement and environmental stewardship.
As Costantini concluded, “This goes beyond just certifying farms. It creates a framework with brands, helping us and ROC to generate support, drive demand and increase the value of products.” The Journey to ROC program represents a pragmatic yet principled approach to scaling regenerative agriculture while preserving the integrity that defines the movement.
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