Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC) and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) announced a collaboration to promote and implement regenerative agricultural and habitat conservation practices in strategic agricultural supply chains, as part of a shared goal to mitigate climate change from food and agricultural production and improve biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Transforming agriculture is a critical component to solving climate change and biodiversity loss, with the global agrifood system accounting for 31% of greenhouse gas emissions[1] and agricultural expansion being the primary driver in 88% of native habitat loss globally[2]. To successfully shift food systems to be regenerative and free from deforestation and conversion, there must be full value chain cooperation toward global goals.
The collaboration between LDC and TNC – two major players in their respective sectors – will accelerate the shift from commitment to on-the-ground implementation and impact, toward a net-zero, nature-positive role for agri-commodities, if action is taken now, at sector level, to encourage practices that improve soil health, restore aquifers, promote biodiversity and mitigate climate change.
“A successful transformation of the global food system is imperative to address the climate crisis and halt biodiversity loss,” says Jennifer Morris, CEO of The Nature Conservancy. “In order to see real change the full value chain needs to be engaged – from farmers to traders to retailers. We are inspired by the steps that LDC has already taken and look forward to scaling these practices to eliminate deforestation and habitat conversion from commodity production on a global scale. Collective action in this sector is imperative to unlock benefits for both people and nature.”
“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, LDC’s Group CEO. “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.”
This 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 with an industry-leading 2020[3] cut-off date.
“This collaboration with LDC will help us to leverage the whole sector to move more quickly on this vital area for climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation,” said David Cleary, TNC’s Director of Global Agriculture and a member of LDC’s Environment Committee.
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 US, 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- & conversion-free (DCF) production – formalizing and expanding a longstanding collaboration between TNC 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.
“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.
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.
“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,” said Axelle Bodoy. “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.
