Regenerative Innovation Portfolio
The Regenerative Innovation Portfolio is an ecosystem collaboration seeking to build a sustainable future for farming in Europe through regenerative agriculture. The Regenerative Innovation Portfolio is an ecosystem collaboration, established as a Food Innovation Hub Europe Initiative, and brought to you by Foodvalley NL and EIT Food supported by the Food Collective.
Our mission is to remove barriers to adoption of regenerative agriculture by demonstrating pathways to transformation at scale by supporting innovative cross-value chain solutions in Europe that enable viable business models for farmers, boost the supply of regenerative products & ecosystem services and de-risk farmer transition.
In this phase of the development, we are specially inviting food corporates, investors and impact funds to join us on this mission to partner up and invest in the Regenerative Innovation Portfolio as a core partner.
From wicked problems to a system transition
Our current agricultural production system is overshooting its limits. Over the past decades, agricultural policies and business models have focused on maximising scale economies through intensifying farming practices. Although this approach has helped feed a growing global population cost-efficiently, intensive arable and livestock farming also produces negative environmental impacts. These negative effects include soil erosion, water quality degradation, climate change, biodiversity loss, harmful emissions and resource depletion. Meanwhile, the income of European farmers has not grown in proportion to the output.
Soil degradation puts agricultural yields and their ability to regulate water, climate and nutrients at risk, making societies increasingly vulnerable to unexpected and extreme events. At the same time, production volumes need to be met to ensure food security for the European continent. Combining these tasks is tremendously complex and challenging, requiring a systematic transition where all stakeholders play an essential role and where all stakeholders need to collaborate from farm to fork.
Regenerative Agriculture, the Solution
We must transition towards an agricultural model that balances short-term productivity with the long-term resilience of the land. By restoring soil health and conserving agricultural ecosystems, we must create the conditions for nature and societies to thrive while safeguarding farmer livelihoods.
Regenerative agriculture is an integrative farming approach that mimics resilient natural ecological systems. By improving ecological processes, this approach to agriculture seeks to foster long-term sustainability within the agricultural system at the field and farm levels, at the regional landscapes and climate level.
Regenerative agriculture does not propose a fixed set of practices but a larger set of solutions that can be shaped based on the specific context of the agricultural landscape. These practices can include mixed farming methods, minimised tillage, crop rotation, cover crops, agroforestry, and minimising or phasing out crop protection chemicals and synthetic fertilisers.
Farmer-centred & landscape-based approach
Regenerative agriculture offers one of the most significant opportunities to help Europe address human and climate health, along with the financial well-being of farmers. However, large-scale transitioning to this model requires a drastic, systemic transformation of how agriculture and the agrifood value chain currently functions.
The Regenerative Innovation Portfolio aims to incentivise facilitating farmers to transition to regenerative agriculture by transitioning the agrifood value chains by initiating various innovative cross-value chain initiatives on landscape level (regional level) that work towards our overarching mission statement through three main pillars,
- Demand and supply matching solutions,
- Solutions for ecosystem services, and
- Financial solutions for de-risking the transition.
Our approach is farmer-centred. We aim to engage closely with farming groups on landscape level to ensure their needs and perspectives are fully considered and are an integral part of innovation solutions designed on regional level, so farmers locally have a seat at the table. Our Portfolio aims to provide benefits as:
- A critical mass of farmers, land, commodity volumes, and funding to demonstrate solutions and a variety of proven commercial models, including financial mechanisms supporting the transition to regenerative farming for different types of agriculture in Europe (arable, horticulture, livestock etc.).
- Solutions for measuring and compensation of regenerative agriculture outcomes and ecosystem services provided.
- Financial solutions designed together with farmers aiming on de-risking like innovative types of contracting, investments, interest rates etc.
Why the need to Partner?
To drive success, we rely on committed partners who share our vision and can contribute resources, knowledge, and expertise. They contribute to creating and implementing new cross-value chain collaborations and initiatives by committing resources in the form of funding, people, and other resources to demonstrate solutions that impact the Portfolio’s mission.
In return, we offer a range of benefits that will help accelerate your journey towards regenerative sourcing and supply chain management, like creating scalable new sourcing models, sharing costs and knowledge, multiplying investments, and learning from other innovation initiatives.
Together, we can create a critical mass of farmers, land, commodity volumes, and funding to demonstrate solutions at a scale relevant to demonstrate feasibility and viability.
Our landscape-based solutions contribute to meeting companies’ scope 3 emissions reduction, biodiversity, water and soil health goals. We also provide new models to de-risk, incentivise, and reward farmers for their environmental performance, contributing positively to companies’ sourcing goals.
‘’Did you know that the top 10 FMCGs and retailers influence about 40% of the agricultural land in the EU and UK alone?’’
- Ellen Macarthur Foundation
Collaborative approach
Our collaborative approach also provides increased viability of otherwise prohibitively costly or inefficient solutions thanks to the complementary capabilities and resources of Portfolio partners. It will catalyse cross value chain innovations that you probable could not have tackled or designed on your own as organisation focusing only in your own value chain.
Sounds good? Then help us grow!
Regenerative agriculture holds great potential for transformative change in the agricultural industry. Get in touch with Jolijn Zwart- van Kessel through jolijn.zwart-vankessel@foodvalley.nl or +31 6 82096140 to receive our full Portfolio prospectus and join us on this journey towards a sustainable future for farming by joining as a partner today.
In this phase of the development, we are specially inviting food corporates, investors and impact funds to join us on this mission to partner up and invest in the Regenerative Innovation Portfolio as a core partner.
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