ROTTERDAM, NETHERLANDS — Louis Dreyfus Co. (LDC), building on its goal to eliminate deforestation and protect biodiversity within its global supply chain, will collaborate with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) to promote and implement regenerative agriculture and habitat conservation to mitigate climate change in food and agricultural production.

LDC and TNC, a US-based global conservation organization, announced their agreement Jan. 12, emphasizing full value chain cooperation to shift food systems to be regenerative and free from deforestation and native vegetation conversion. The global agrifood system accounts for 31% of greenhouse gas emissions and agricultural expansion being the primary driver in 88% of native habitat loss globally, the partners noted.

“In a context of accelerating climate challenges affecting crops and farmer livelihoods worldwide, the long-term resilience of global food and agricultural supply chains requires a transition to sustainable practices where the food system begins — at the farm level,” said Michael Gelchie, group chief executive officer for Rotterdam, Netherlands-based LDC. “As a leading global merchant and processor of agricultural goods, our strategic position in the value chain means we have a key role to play to incentivize and support this transition, including by driving adoption of regenerative agriculture, helping to reduce emissions, conserve ecosystems and natural resources, and drive climate resilience in farming communities.”

The collaboration builds on LDC’s existing commitment to eliminate deforestation and conversion of native vegetation of high conservation value for agricultural purposes from its supply chains by the end of 2025.

The collaboration will be global and cross-commodity in nature, focusing initially on grains and oilseeds value chains, as well as coffee and cotton, across two interconnected “pillars” for on-the-ground collaboration:

• Regenerative agriculture: Working together to implement LDC’s regenerative agriculture strategy, programming, financing and impact accounting in line with leading methodologies. The collaboration will have an initial focus on a select set of large-scale, strategic efforts in the United States, Canada, Brazil and Argentina, and including joint assessments of ongoing regenerative agriculture projects to analyze pathways for collaboration and scale-up across the value chains.
• Deforestation- and conversion-free (DCF) production: Formalizing and expanding a longstanding collaboration between The Nature Conservancy and LDC around DCF production to support the implementation of LDC’s global DCF commitment, with a focus on developing incentive mechanisms to farmers, and improving monitoring of and reporting on implementation.

LDC’s regenerative agriculture plan targets a minimum of 3 million acres (approximately 1.2 million hectares) by 2030, reaching out to some 30,000 farmers in selected commodity supply chains, with a focus on holistic farming systems transformation and adoption of agricultural practices that improve soil health, restore aquifers, promote biodiversity and mitigate climate change, while increasing farmers’ profitability and resilience over time.

“As we pursue our regenerative agriculture strategy, we are thrilled to be working with TNC, which brings a science-based approach and decades of experience in building and scaling resilient food systems that benefit both people and the planet,” said Axelle Bodoy, head of regenerative agriculture at LDC. “Through large-scale projects at landscape level around some key LDC facilities, we intend to aggregate cross crop rotation and cross value chain collaboration with like-minded partners up- and downstream. 

“With TNC’s support, we are ideally positioned to understand farmers’ needs and support adoption of relevant innovations, co-design programs with farmers and other value chain partners to lead the development of more resilient, future-proofed agronomic systems, and provide robust, credible and ambitious ESG impacts for our supply chain partners.”

LDC, TNC, and local agronomists and projects implementers also continue to develop pilot projects in other supply chains, such as citrus in Brazil and coffee in Vietnam, Indonesia, Uganda and other origins.