A study recently published in PeerJ by David Montgomery, Anna Bikle, Ray Archuleta, Paul Brown, and Jazmin Jordan showed that regenerative farms (averaging 5-10 years of regenerative practices) compared to conventional farms in the same area with same soil type out performed their neighbors on soil organic matter, soil health scores, and nutrient density of food.
In particular, they found that regenerative farms averaged 3-12% soil organic matter while conventional farms averaged 2-5% (as much as a five-fold difference. With Haney soil health scores, the regenerative farms averaged scores of 11-30 while the conventional farms averaged scores of 3-14 (as much as a seven-fold difference). Lastly, when measuring the vitamins and nutrients in the food (a particularly challenging comparison), the researchers found that farm crops from the regenerative farms had 34% more vitamin K, 15% more vitamin E, 14% more vitamin B1, and 17% more vitamin B2, as well as 15% more total carotenoids, 20% more total phenolics, 22% more total phytosterols, 11% more calcium, 16% more phosphorus, and 27% more copper.
Farms included in the study were from North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Iowa, Tennessee, Kansas, North Dakota, and Montana. The regenerative farms practice no-till, cover, crops, and diverse rotations.
Fatty acid tests on beef showed that beef raised on regenerative farms had 6 times more essential omega-3s and pork had more than 9 times the omega 3s.
This study supports previous studies that note the difference in food's nutritional quality due to production practices.