Regenerative Agriculture in the Southern Great Plains - Texas Water Resources Institute
Texas A&M AgriLife
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October 20, 2026
Cameron Castilaw
To help rural communities survive and thrive in the shifting economic and environmental conditions, researchers examine regenerative agriculture’s impacts from every angle.
The Southern Great Plains has seen many shifts in farming and ranching over the last 200 years. From Texas settlers managing open-range cattle in the 19th century to conversion to farmland for growing cotton and other crops and widespread groundwater pumping and irrigation in the 20th century, the land has undergone profound changes as farmers make their livelihoods.
How producers manage soil and water resources has also changed over the years as various farming practices have been studied and adopted.
Spanning portions of Texas and Oklahoma, the Southern Great Plains are semi-arid and home to both extreme weather and vital agricultural production. Approximately half of the United States’ cotton crop is produced there.
But the future of Southern Great Plains agriculture is increasingly uncertain.
Declining groundwater availability, prolonged periods of drought and severe weather, and rising production costs are forcing producers to rethink how farming practices can best sustain them and the land they depend on.
Estimated reading time: 18 minutes
More Information
- Southern Great Plains Regen Ag website
- Katie Lewis, Ph.D. and Joseph Burke’s, Ph.D. Soil Lab
- Subscribe to txH2O
Regenerative agriculture project begins
From these growing concerns came the Agricultural Intensification and Enhancement Through the Utilization of Regenerative Agricultural Management Practices project, a $10 million, 5-year Strengthening Agricultural Systems grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture – Agriculture and Food Research Initiative.
The multi-disciplinary project is in its final year and has successfully brought together more than 30 faculty researchers and 25 graduate students, from eight institutions and two states.
Also known as the regenerative agriculture project, it is led by Katie Lewis, Ph.D., a soil chemistry and fertility scientist and professor in the Texas A&M University Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, based out of the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Lubbock.
“Our goal is to identify regenerative agricultural strategies that improve soil health, conserve limited water resources, enhance farm profitability and strengthen the long-term resilience of agricultural communities across the Southern Great Plains,” Lewis said. “By integrating practices such as cover crops, livestock grazing and conservation tillage into cotton production systems, we are generating science-based information that helps producers make informed management decisions.”
“The overarching focus of this project is developing regenerative cotton production systems that use cover crops and follow soil health principles to maximize profitability,” said Allen Berthold, Ph.D., associate director of the Texas Water Resources Institute and an objective leader in the project.