In the year 2050, we need to provide food security to ten billion people worldwide. Simultaneously, our current agricultural production system is exceeding its limits. The result? Negative impacts to the environment and disrupted essential ecosystem services. Declining crop yields due to climate change, soil degradation and the loss of biodiversity are making farming, and farmer livelihoods, increasingly vulnerable.
Enhancing the resilience of farms is pivotal for their economic viability and ensuring food security. It is also essential for the restoration of our environment and ecosystems, offering a solution to mitigate the effects of climate change. Achieving this requires a systemic transition, across the entire food value chain.
Regenerative agriculture presents a possible promising path forward. It provides significant opportunities to address climate health, while benefiting farmers, their livelihoods and economic development. As an example, regenerative agriculture helps to mitigate climate change and restore biodiversity and water quality. This approach includes practices such as cover crops, no-till farming and implementing polycultures. Regenerative agriculture can also stimulate economic development and the agricultural production value chain in areas such as processing and distribution.
Regenerative agriculture is an integrative farming approach that aims to restore and enhance the health of ecosystems and agricultural systems. It goes beyond sustainable farming practices by actively working to improve soil health, increase biodiversity and promote resilience to environmental challenges. Regenerative agricultural practices include, amongst others, minimised tillage, cover crops and the use of perennials.
A growing number of organisations and businesses, from large food corporates to SMEs and NGOs, are recognizing the significance of adopting regenerative practices. Despite growing commitment, impactful, cross-value chain collaborations, that put the farmer central, are lagging behind. Yet, such collaborations are imperative for achieving true systemic change.
Foodvalley NL is bringing partners from within and outside of the value chain together. By bringing together technologies, knowledge and capital, the partners can collaborate with farmers. Together, they can overcome barriers in transitioning towards regenerative practices and create new innovative, social and technical, circular business solutions.
Do you want to learn how we do this? Our current initiatives in this area:
Regenerative Innovation Portfolio | Food Innovation Hub Europe (fiheurope.org)
For more information or opportunities for collaboration, contact Jolijn Zwart – van Kessel, Innovation Lead Circular Agrifood.
We believe that the solution to transition agricultural practices by farmers lies in cross value chain collaboration, where all partners work together in facilitating the farmer, put in the central, to transition towards regenerative practices. This is not an agricultural transition but more a value chain transition that needs a collaborative approach to come to scale.
Read more