Tate & Lyle establishes regenerative agriculture program in France

Tate & Lyle has expanded its regenerative agriculture program to Europe by supporting corn suppliers in France to farm more sustainably. The global F&B ingredients company has developed the program with farming cooperatives and representative groups, as well as Regrow Ag, an agricultural resilience platform.

The Regrow Ag platform enables companies to measure, model, and accelerate regenerative outcomes across global supply chains, enabling farmers to understand the impact of adopting regenerative agronomic practices.

Tate & Lyle will monitor the environmental improvements it supports on thousands of acres of corn used to make many of its specialty ingredients.

Food production is responsible for around one-third of GHG emissions, while more food is needed to feed a growing global population. Reducing the climate impact of the entire value chain will be crucial to solving the climate crisis.

Regenerative agriculture in France

Tate & Lyle supports farmer efforts to strengthen resilience to climate change impacts through an agreement with three of its largest farming partners — Armbruster Grande Cultures, Euralis Groupe Coopératif, and Groupe Coopératif Maïsadour — who represent growers in the northeast and southwest of France.

The program prioritizes practices to support soil health, including “low and no till,” which minimizes soil disturbance; cover crops, which support soil health; and nitrogen management to reduce the use of synthetic fertilisers.

Tate & Lyle and its partners will use Regrow’s AI-driven software platform to quantify environmental impacts and monitor trends in participating farms. Regrow and local agronomists partner to support farmers with data entry and analysis, informing farm planning and integrating into Tate & Lyle and its customers’ environmental reporting.Regrow Ag enables farmers to measure, model, and accelerate regenerative agriculture.

Tate & Lyle’s more mature programs

The France initiative builds on Tate & Lyle’s other regenerative agriculture programs, which support corn growers in the US and stevia growers in China. Tate & Lyle says it maintains acres equivalent to the volume of corn it buys annually in its regenerative agriculture programs.

Tate & Lyle’s CEO Nick Hampton says: “Regenerative agriculture is at the heart of our approach to sustainability because helping farmers to become more resilient to the impacts of increasing climate change-related events also enables our customers to feed a growing population — a win-win.”

“For businesses in the food chain, flooding, droughts, and severe temperatures that affect harvests and the use of natural resources are a shared challenge. Through our more mature, science and tech-driven regenerative agriculture programs in the US and China, we’ve demonstrated that these programs can materially improve yield and crop quality for farmers and the businesses they supply.”

“This new program in France is about supporting farmers, and it also makes perfect business sense as it helps to make our supply chain more resilient.”

Yesterday, we reported on how scientists in South Korea discovered a rapid molecular “switch” that reprograms plant growth in response to cold stress. The findings could potentially unlock pathways to climate-resilient crops that thrive under unpredictable climate conditions.