Danone has partnered with Landscape Enterprise Networks to support regenerative agriculture among British oat farmers, improving soil health and resilience. The partnership is set to fund regenerative farming practices across more than 2,500 hectares of British farmland, including key regions supplying oats for its Alpro drinks.
The funding will help farmers adopt practices designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions, improve soil health and biodiversity, and strengthen resilience to increasingly unpredictable weather. This follows Danone’s decision in 2025 to source all oats for its core Alpro oat drinks from British farms. The company reports that the switch reduced the products’ average carbon footprint by 25 percent and water use by 70 percent across their UK life cycle, saving approximately 5,000 tonnes of carbon emissions in 2025.
Regenerative Agriculture Practices
Through this partnership, Danone will support three key farming practices: reduced cultivation systems, cover crops, and straw chopping. Reduced cultivation systems involve gentler cultivation methods to protect soil structure, reduce erosion, and retain more carbon and moisture in the ground. Cover crops involve planting a diverse mix of plant species after the main crop is harvested to keep the soil covered over winter. These plants help improve soil health, support biodiversity, reduce nutrient loss, and prepare the land for the next crop. Straw chopping involves chopping and returning straw to the soil, which adds organic matter, helping to improve soil fertility, structure, and water retention.
Supporting Regenerative Farming at Scale
Danone is joining a funding model already operating at a considerably larger scale. In 2025, Landscape Enterprise Networks brought together 16 funders, including Nestlé and Diageo, to provide more than €6.6 million for regenerative practices covering 67,700 hectares across seven European regions. By pooling investment, manufacturers can support changes across entire growing regions while sharing the costs of monitoring environmental outcomes.
Measuring Progress
Landscape Enterprise Networks expects the partnership to deliver measurable results during its first year, with participating oat growers beginning to implement regenerative practices this autumn. Donald Lunan, CEO of Landscape Enterprise Networks, said: “Danone’s co-funding will achieve measurable impact even in year one. Oat farmers will be implementing regenerative practices this autumn that will help reduce and remove carbon, build soil health, improve water quality and increase biodiversity, all of which contribute to greater resilience across the whole sourcing region.”
Landscape Enterprise Networks uses measurement, reporting, and verification processes to track environmental outcomes, including carbon emissions, biodiversity, and soil health. Establishing consistent evidence of progress is also becoming an industry-wide priority. In June, SAI Platform introduced a regenerative agriculture framework backed by more than 40 food companies to support a more consistent approach across supply chains.
Richard Maddever, an oat grower benefiting from the funding, said: “As climate change presents new challenges, the support from Alpro and Landscape Enterprise Networks is enabling us to take meaningful action now to improve the resilience of our land. It’s an investment not just in our farm, but in ensuring we can continue growing oats for generations to come.”
Danone reports that 42 percent of its directly sourced key ingredients come from farms that have begun transitioning to regenerative agriculture. Since 2017, the company has supported the implementation of 25 regenerative agriculture projects across 20 countries.