Beyond metrics: Corporate governance and the reordering of rural power in regenerative agriculture

Corporate regenerative agriculture programs are transforming the governance of sustainability in rural areas. Through contracts, incentive schemes, and monitoring systems, agrifood corporations now influence farming practices that were once guided by public institutions or local knowledge. While these initiatives claim to promote ecological regeneration, they also redefine how power, trust, and responsibility are distributed across the countryside. Drawing on comparative analysis of forty-five corporate regenerative agriculture programs and thirty-four interviews with farmers, agronomists, and sustainability managers, this study examines how these programs are designed and governed, and how they affect rural autonomy and legitimacy. The analysis identifies four main governance logics: compliance, experimentation, partnership, and branding. Each reflects a different balance between corporate control and farmer participation, from audit-driven oversight to collaborative learning. The findings show that compliance and branding-driven models often strengthen corporate authority while offering only symbolic participation. In contrast, partnership and experimentation models allow limited spaces for negotiation and trust-building. Across all cases, the alignment between corporate timelines and the slower rhythms of ecological and social change determines whether regenerative transitions deliver real transformation or remain performative. By viewing regenerative agriculture as a form of rural governance reordering, the paper connects institutional design with questions of justice, autonomy, and legitimacy. It argues that the success of regeneration depends not only on ecological practices but on how democratic and inclusive the governance structures behind them become. • Corporate regenerative agriculture acts as a new form of rural governance. • Four governance logics shape rural adaptation: compliance, experimentation, partnership, branding. • Temporal and legitimacy gaps limit the depth of corporate regenerative transitions. • “Legitimacy traps” explain why audit-driven systems sustain credibility without real change. • True regeneration depends on co-adaptive governance and shared risk between firms and farmers.