Recent reviews have identified major themes within regenerative agriculture—soil health, biodiversity, and socioeconomic disparities—but have so far been unable to clarify a definition based on practice and/or outcomes. In recent years, the concept has seen a rapid increase in farming, popular, and corporate interest, the scope of which now sees regenerative agriculture best viewed as a movement. To define and guide further practical and academic work in this respect, the authors have returned to the literature to explore the movement’s origins, intentions, and potential through three phases of work: early academic, current popular, and current academic. A consistent intention from early to current supporters sees the regeneration, or rebuilding, of agricultural resources, soil, water, biota, human, and energy as necessary to achieve a sustainable agriculture. This intention aligns well with international impetus to improve ecosystem function. The yet to be confirmed definition, an intention for iterative design, and emerging consumer and ecosystem service markets present several potential avenues to deliver these intentions. To assist, the authors propose the Farmscape Function framework, to monitor the impact of change in our agricultural resources over time, and a mechanism to support further data-based innovation. These tools and the movement’s intentions position regenerative agriculture as a state for rather than type of agriculture.

Intergovernmental organisations are pushing for ecological renewal with ever-increasing urgency. The trinity of Precision, Digital, and Smart (Ag 4.0) Agriculture encapsulate the tools best positioned to quantify the contributions farmscapes make towards these ends. However, work under these banners to date has rested on productivity and efficiency. Limiting negative environmental outcomes, when acknowledged as an objective, is most often presented as possible through ex-post evaluations. Conversely, Regenerative Agriculture champions environmental renewal as the pathway to more resilient and consistent production systems but currently lacks scientific validation. A synergy of the two will enhance both by (i) developing data on environmentally forward systems, (ii) presenting new challenges for monitoring, and (iii) by laying a foundation for the farmer-led data-driven site-specific refinement of management systems that prioritise outcomes for production through enhanced environmental function. All of which, when passed through a digital supply chain, will contribute substantially to product provenance and, in turn, consumer confidence.

The long-term sustainability of Australian agriculture is fundamentally constrained by the capacity, condition, availability, and governance of soil resources. Australian soils are among the oldest and most weathered globally, highly heterogeneous, and often slow or effectively irreversible to recover once degraded. Traditional approaches centred on soil health, while valuable at paddock scale, are insufficient to address national-scale challenges related to spatial variability, data continuity, economic valuation, and policy integration. This paper examines soil security as a policy-relevant framework for supporting more sustainable Australian agriculture. Building on the dimensions of soil security (capacity, condition, capital, connectivity, and codification), we synthesise recent Australian case studies to show how soil security extends beyond soil health to integrate biophysical properties, digital soil infrastructure, socio-economic value, and governance mechanisms. Drawing on recent Australian case studies, this review identifies advances in digital soil mapping, national soil assessments, economic valuation of soil capital, stakeholder connectivity, and emerging policy frameworks, while also identifying persistent gaps in regulation, data standardisation, and institutional coordination. The paper argues that soil security can help operationalise 3-N agriculture—Net-Zero, Nature-Positive, and Nutrient-Balanced systems—by translating sustainability goals into spatially explicit, place-based decisions grounded in soil realities. By explicitly accounting for soil capacity limits, condition trajectories, capital value, information flows, and codified rules, soil security can support more realistic climate mitigation strategies, targeted nature-positive interventions, and durable nutrient security outcomes. We conclude that embedding soil security more explicitly within Australian agricultural research, policy, and governance would strengthen efforts to deliver productive, resilient, and socially legitimate food and fibre systems. Without soil security, sustainability frameworks may remain difficult to operationalise consistently; with soil security, they can be translated more effectively into measurable, place-based, and durable decisions.