Danone backs regenerative agriculture across 2,500 hectares of UK farmland

Danone has partnered with Landscape Enterprise Networks (LENs) 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.

It 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.

Through LENs, Danone will contribute funding alongside other businesses, sharing the costs and risks of adopting regenerative practices across agricultural landscapes.

Supporting regenerative farming at scale

Danone is joining a funding model already operating at a considerably larger scale. In 2025, LENs 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.

Hannah Cornick, Sustainability and Social Impact Director at Danone North Europe, said: “The challenges facing farming and the environment cannot be solved alone. They require coordinated action, backed by evidence, and a shared commitment to maintaining healthy, resilient landscapes.”

Measuring progress across the supply chain

LENs 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 LENs, 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.”

LENs 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.

For farmers, the funding helps offset the costs of changing established practices, where upfront investment can come before improvements in soil health or productivity become apparent.

As climate change presents new challenges, the support from Alpro and LENs 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.”

Richard Maddever, an oat grower benefiting from the funding

Since 2017, Danone has supported the implementation of 25 regenerative agriculture projects across 20 countries. The company reports that 42 percent of its directly sourced key ingredients come from farms that have begun transitioning to regenerative agriculture.