Regenerative Agriculture Salon: Conversations Around Responsible Business in Food Systems
The Center for Responsible Business hosted a Regenerative Agriculture Salon on February 24, 2026, bringing together five women working across the food movement for an honest conversation about what it really takes to build businesses that last while also doing good.
SPEAKERS:
Pooja Bag — Former Director of Sales, Diaspora Co.
Linda Renteria — COO, Casa Sanchez Foods
Lina Ghanem — Director & Co-Founder, Saba Grocers
Tania Zuñiga — Associate Regional Program Director, Kitchen Table Advisors
Whendee Silver — Professor of Environmental Sciences, Policy, and Management, UC Berkeley Rausser College of Natural Resources
MODERATOR:
Missy Martin — CRB Fellow, Full-Time MBA, Class of 2026
Responsible Business Looks Different Depending on Where You Stand
The five panelists each saw responsibility from a different angle. For Lina Ghanem of Saba Grocers, it means reinvesting profits into the corner stores and community businesses larger food systems ignore. For Whendee Silver, it’s about providing landowners and companies with honest data and helping them sit with trade-offs, rather than pretending easy answers exist.
Pooja Bag highlights the tie between responsibility and public accountability, whether that might be open advocacy, donated revenue, or building a team culture that can actually sustain the work. Tania Zuñiga sees it as co-creating ecosystems: equipping farmers with the right contracts, tools, and connections to value-aligned buyers. And Linda Renteria’s version was the most immediate: when costs rose and uncertainty set in, she gave her employees a raise. Sometimes responsibility is just having grace with the key team members you work with.
“Care comes from understanding the people you serve. You need to be relevant and caring, and a lot of that will transfer directly into the financial model.” Lina Renteria
The Word “Regenerative” Is Doing a Lot of Work
The discussion also surfaced a deeper tension around language. Terms like “holistic,” “soil health,” and “regenerative” have become elastic enough to mean almost anything, and certification checklists might push businesses toward checking boxes rather than driving genuine impact. The question arose whether a simpler, more honest framing, something like “we are a climate-friendly business actively removing carbon from the system,” might actually be more effective. MRV (measurement, reporting, and verification) may eventually bring clarity, but for now the burden of proof continues to fall disproportionately on producers.
What Farmers Actually Need
When the conversation turned to what support is most meaningful right now, the answer across the panel was access. Providing farmers with access to land, capital, water, and legal frameworks that protect rather than extract is critical. Additionally, underlying the conversation was an uncomfortable truth. If farmers were paid what their labor and stewardship are genuinely worth, food would cost significantly more. This wasn’t an argument against fair compensation, but an invitation to examine and think more critically about what our food system is actually optimizing for.
Consolidation, Accountability, and the Limits of Reporting
The sharpest warnings came to be about trends in consolidation. At nearly every point in the supply chain, aggregation is accelerating and small, mission-driven producers are getting squeezed. This consolidation is compounded by deregulation, pushing small farms to serve only the wealthiest communities rather than building the diverse, resilient food systems that would actually serve everyone.
On sustainability reporting, the room was blunt. Requirements exist, but verification often doesn’t. Testing and certification burdens fall somewhere along the supply chain, and where they land shape what actually gets measured. The cost of compliance can also determine who gets to participate at all. Certification requirements that seem neutral on the surface can quietly narrow the field, excluding the smaller or under-resourced producers who may need support most. The throughline: reporting without verification is just paperwork, and right now the gap between what gets reported and what gets verified is enormous.
About The Author
Sophia Busam is a second year, full-time MBA student interested in the intersection of business and community-driven change, sustainability, and innovation. Prior to Haas, she worked as a consultant at EY, interned on a farm in Italy, and most recently working with a start-up focused on upcycled food and combating food waste. In her free time, you can find Sophia listening to records, baking bread, practicing yoga, and exploring coffee shops.
