EIT Food and Foodvalley’s joint €30M innovation hub slated to propel regenerative agriculture

14 Mar 2024 --- EU-backed food innovation community EIT Food and Foodvalley have unveiled a €30 million (US$32.8 million) Regenerative Innovation Portfolio to leverage regenerative agriculture’s potential in Europe.

The move is expected to foster greater collaboration across sectors and value chains to help farmers transition to regenerative agriculture practices, leading to its acceleration and scale-up.

The Portfolio — established as a Food Innovation Hub Europe Initiative — will use the cash injection to launch and support landscape initiatives, ecosystem development and inter-landscape learning. It will also help participants apply for external funding.

Richard Zaltzman, CEO of EIT Food, believes it is crucial to establish “a future-fit food system for all, a transition that can only be achieved by prioritizing systemic, regenerative approaches to agriculture, in a way that keeps farmers front and center and fosters collaboration between all stakeholders in the food chain.”

EIT Food will invest €15 million (US$16.4 million) to support the Portfolio, which will be matched against funding from corporate partners. The move, according to Zaltzman, will “enable the community to contribute to a regenerative transition within Europe.”

Regenerative agriculture can positively contribute to the social and economic position of farmers.Priority landscapes
The Portfolio has identified five potential priority landscapes throughout Europe where multiple stakeholders — such as regional governments, investors and retailers — have mutual interests and complimentary sourcing needs.

“By creating a collaborative community, the Regenerative Innovation Portfolio will generate and share learnings and experiences between landscapes, which will help to foster more successful partnerships and innovation in the future and get all stakeholders in the landscape transition to play their role,” says Marjolein Brasz, CEO of Foodvalley.

“We have already seen significant efforts and initiatives from farmers and cooperatives in the shift to regenerative agriculture,” he notes, adding that the initiative will aid practically in scaling and expanding these approaches.

Some activities that generate a return will be re-invested in the Portfolio.

Farmer collaborations
The Portfolio will follow a collaborative, landscape-based approach that will help corporates derive benefits while working with farmers.

The F&B industry is collaborating with farmers on regenerative agriculture to restore ecosystem balance.

The F&B industry is collaborating with farmers to restore ecosystem balance.In practice, farmers do not supply to a “single off-taker” but supply a range of commodities to numerous stakeholders, says EIT Food. This makes close collaboration between buyers essential to allow for the production of a broad range of regenerative crops and products at scale.

The Portfolio also introduces new models to de-risk, incentivise and reward farmers for their environmental performance, aligning with companies' sourcing goals.

Sustainable supply chains
The F&B industry is honing in on regenerative agriculture with farmer collaborations for sustainable food production and restoring ecosystem balance.

Cargill works with farmers to make practices more regeneratively positive through its Regen Ag initiative and has committed to using 10 million regeneratively positive acres by 2030, the company’s CTO and VP of R&D and Innovation told Food Ingredients First last month.

The EU’s incoming Deforestation Regulation has also prompted businesses like ADM, Unilever and ofi to focus on their sustainable production transition, which is expected to cost US$32.3 billion in Europe.

Meanwhile, FoodChain ID is advancing independent certification of regenerative agricultural practices to mitigate climate change acceleration.

By Insha Naureen

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