How did we solve this?

In 2017, Danone North America introduced a five-year Soil Health Program involving farmers supplying milk for Danone North America brands such as Oikos, Two Good, Horizon Organic and more. The program, renamed to the Danone NORAM Regenerative Agriculture Program in 2020 due to the increasing scope, aimed to improve organic matter in soils to increase carbon sequestration and improved yields, reduce chemical use, restore biodiversity and enhance soil water holding capacity, helping to provide farms with improved, long-term economic resilience.

The Program aims to:

• Implementing no-till farming practices to minimize soil disturbance and help enrich soil biodiversity.
• Planting more than 20 cover crops species, from barley and oats to alfalfa and red clover, to improve soil health, slow erosion and attract pollinators.
• Establishing buffer zones to prevent contamination between certified organic production and non-organic land.
• Fostering on-farm biodiversity by conserving just over 1,700 acres of grassed waterways, buffer lands, forest and wetlands.

To implement these actions, continuous improvement plan were developed with each farmer in collaboration with Sustainable Environmental Consultants (SEC), based on a detailed diagnostic of practices, agronomic recommendations and the use of the R3™ ROI Tool. This provided farmers with a comprehensive view of their operations and forecast the return on investment, to help them understand the potential financial impacts regenerative agriculture can have on their farm to enable decision making and prioritization. The improvement plan aims to help farmers learn from their soil to maximize environmental impact all while providing science-based benchmarks to set short and medium-term goals.

After just four years, the Regenerative Agriculture Program has expanded to more than 140,000 acres across the U.S. and Canada, representing 72% growth in acreage from year 3 results, reduced nearly 119,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, sequestered more than 31,000 tons of carbon through regenerative soil health practices, and prevented more than 337,000 tons of soil from erosion, resulting in nearly $3.3 million in cost avoidance for farmer partners.

Additionally, farmer partners planted cover crops on 51% of the program acreage versus the national average of 4%, and practice reduced or no till management practices on 63% of the program acreage versus the national average of 33%. The program has also increased use of soil moisture probes by 55%, helping to ensure and ultimately enhance soil’s water-holding capacity through informed and improved water usage practices.