Danone North America, also known for its yogurt, committed $6 million last year to research soil health and regenerative agriculture. “Regenerative agriculture is at a critical juncture—it’s really just gotten off the ground but is what we see as the way food should be grown going forward,” says Tina Owens, the company’s senior director of agriculture.
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In the rolling hills along a rural stretch of the California coastline south of San Francisco, researchers plunged small probes into the soil last year, took samples, and sent them to a lab to measure the carbon stored in the dirt. Three years earlier, they’d done the same thing. Over time, they found, the amount of carbon in the soil had grown. The hypothesis: A herd of cattle grazing on the land may be fighting climate change by helping sequester extra carbon from the air into the ground.
Is it possible for a burger to be carbon-neutral? It’s well known that cattle—and by extension, beef and milk and cheese and ice cream—have a large carbon footprint. A 2018 study found that Americans need to eat 90% less beef and 60% less milk to keep global warming under 2 degrees Celsius. But another recent study suggests that if farmers manage grazing using specific techniques called regenerative agriculture, the final stage of beef production could actually sequester more carbon than it produces.
Regenerative agriculture practices could store carbon on farms growing other crops, and if it happened across the industry, some experts predict that the impact could be substantial. If the quantity of carbon in soils on farms increases 0.4% each year, says the European “4 Per 1000” initiative, it could offset the 4.3 billion tons of CO2 emissions that humans pump into the atmosphere annually. Another study from the National Academy of Sciences put the figure at 3 billion tons.
The possibilities are especially intriguing to food companies that are trying to lower the emissions that are required to grow their products. “We’ve come around to the understanding that our biggest opportunity to make an impact not just on reducing emissions but potentially trying to turn agriculture into a solution for a climate change rather than a part of the problem really lies in improving soil health,” says Britt Lundgren, director of organic and sustainable agriculture at Stonyfield Farm.
r companies with cows in their supply chain, the potential to alter the emissions calculus for animal agriculture is especially interesting, as plant-based dairy and meat startups are growing quickly, in part because of their environmental claims. But it’s not that simple: Behind the eye-popping numbers from pro-regenerative agriculture studies, there’s some deep scientific controversy about exactly how much carbon it will actually cut—and if it’s just a way for a polluting industry to argue that it can continue to expand at a time when emissions need to radically fall.
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Annie’s, Inc. This Macaroni And Cheese Helps Fight Climate Change
It’s made using ingredients farmed with a technique called regenerative agriculture, that can help sequester carbon. [06.03.2018]
General Mills has a plan to regenerate 1 million acres of farmland
One of the largest food companies in the U.S. is calling for farming practices that keep carbon trapped in the earth and create healthy, rich soil. [04.03.2019]
Patagonia: This new cereal and beer share an ingredient–and it’s fighting climate change [9.04.2019]
https://www.generalmills.com/en/Responsibility/Sustainability/Regenerative-agriculture
https://www.danone.com/impact/planet/regenerative-agriculture.html
