Farming so the soil is better than we found it
Regenerative is a word that gets used loosely. Here is what it means on our land, in practice, and who checks that we are actually doing it.
Four things that are true of every acre
Organic tells you what a farm leaves out. Regenerative asks what it puts back. We are asked to prove both.
Certified, not self-declared
Certified Regenerative Organic by the Regenerative Organic Alliance in June 2022, and Regenified in 2024, the first Regenerative Organic Certified® almond farm in the world. Anyone can use the word. We are audited on it.
Organic across the whole farm since 2015
Benina began transitioning almond blocks in 2006. It took nine years to bring every acre across. Not a block, not a line. The farm.
No synthetic inputs
No synthetic pesticides, herbicides or fertilizers. No GMOs. What feeds the trees is compost, cover crops and the animals that graze them.
Grown and packed by our family
Our crop is never pooled with another grower's. When you buy from us, you can trace it to the block it came off.
One system, not a list of tactics
Each piece makes way for the next. That is the part that took us the longest to learn, and it is the reason the practices are hard to adopt one at a time.
Sheep graze the orchards
They eat the cover crop down instead of a mower burning diesel to do it, and they leave fertility behind while they work.
The soil takes it up
Cover crop roots and manure feed the biology underground. Living soil holds water longer, which matters more here every year.
The trees need less from us
Healthier soil means fewer inputs bought in from outside. The savings are what make the rest of it affordable to keep doing.
What that looks like day to day
Sheep on the cover crop
Our flock moves through the orchards through the winter and spring, grazing the understory rather than mowing it.
Cover crops between the rows
Legumes and grasses seeded in the fall. They hold the soil through the rains and feed it when they are grazed off.
Owl boxes
A barn owl pair works through a great many rodents in a season. It is the cheapest pest control on the farm and it costs nothing to run.
Hedgerows and flowering borders
Planted for the pollinators and the beneficial insects, on land that would otherwise sit bare.
Hens on pasture
Out on grass with room to range, moved to fresh pasture so the ones behind them recover.
Compost, not fertilizer
What the animals and the orchards produce goes back into the soil rather than being trucked away and replaced with a bag.
Water is the whole question in this valley
We farm in the northern San Joaquin Valley. Everyone here is having the same conversation about groundwater, and no one has finished having it.
Soil with living biology and roots in it takes water in faster and holds it longer than soil that has been tilled bare. That is not a marketing claim. It is the practical reason we farm this way, and what lets the trees get through a dry year. The grandchildren's version of this farm depends on what the soil can hold.
Four audits, four different questions
They overlap, but not completely. Each one looks at something the others do not, which is the reason we carry more than one.
Regenerative Organic Certified®
Soil health, animal welfare and the people who work here. All three, or you do not pass. Silver level, certified June 2022.
Regenified
Measures outcomes in the soil rather than the practices on paper. Certified 2024.
USDA Organic
The floor, not the ceiling. No synthetic inputs, no GMOs. Farm-wide since 2015.
Real Organic Project
An add-on for crops grown in real soil, in the ground. It exists because organic alone no longer guarantees that.
Certifications vary by product. Each product page lists the marks that apply to it.
Nineteen years, one block at a time
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2006
The first blocks come out of conventional
Benina starts the organic transition on part of the almond acreage. Three years before any of it can be called organic, and no premium in the meantime.
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2015
The whole farm is certified organic
Nine years to bring every acre across.
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2022
Regenerative Organic Certified®
Certified at Silver by the Regenerative Organic Alliance in June, the first Regenerative Organic Certified® almond farm in the world.
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2024
Regenified
A second audit, measuring outcomes in the soil rather than practices on paper.
