Danone has joined Landscape Enterprise Networks (LENs) in the East of England, providing new funding to help British oat farmers adopt and build on regenerative farming practices to create greater resilience across the landscapes where its oats are grown.
The partnership, announced by Danone on 19 October, will support regenerative agriculture across more than 2,500 hectares, including farms within Danone’s key British oat sourcing regions.
Through LENs, Danone will co-fund with other organisations who have a shared interest in the resilience of this sourcing region. This collaborative approach enables businesses to move beyond interventions focused solely on their own supply chains and contribute to collective action across whole sourcing regions.
For participating farmers, the funding will support practical measures including reduced cultivation, cover crops and straw chopping. These practices are designed to improve soil health, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, support biodiversity and increase the ability of soils and farming systems to cope with increasingly unpredictable weather.
From resilient supply chains to resilient landscapes
The partnership follows Danone’s move in 2025 to source 100% British oats for its core Alpro oat drinks. According to Danone, this resulted in an average 25% lower carbon footprint and 70% less water use across the products’ UK lifecycle, saving approximately 5,000 tonnes of carbon emissions during the year.
Joining LENs takes that commitment a step further by investing directly in the farms and landscapes on which future production depends.
It also reflects a growing recognition that the challenges facing agriculture cannot be addressed farm by farm or business by business. Climate change, declining soil health, biodiversity loss and water pressures operate across landscapes, while many of the businesses sourcing from those landscapes share an interest in addressing them.
The challenges facing farming and the environment cannot be solved alone. They require coordinated action, backed by evidence, and a shared commitment to maintaining healthy, resilient landscapes. We are delighted to join the LENs programme so we can more directly support British oat farmers within our supply chain. By bringing together farmers, businesses and environmental experts, this model helps drive coordinated action that delivers tangible benefits for soil health, biodiversity and climate resilience. Just as importantly, it provides the robust measurement needed to demonstrate impact over time, helping create a stronger future for farming, nature and local food systems.
Hannah Cornick, Sustainability and Social Impact Director, Danone North Europe
LENs provides a mechanism for organisations to work together, combining funding and directing it towards practical measures delivered by farmers and land managers.
The programme is designed to create benefits both for individual farm businesses and across the wider landscape, strengthening the natural systems that underpin agricultural production while helping companies address risks within their sourcing regions.
Supporting farmers to invest for the long term
The Danone funding will support oat growers to put regenerative practices into action from this autumn, with their impact measured over time.
Danone’s co-funding will achieve measurable impact even in year one. Oat farmers will be implementing regenerative practices this autumn that will help reduce and remove carbon, build soil health, improve water quality and increase biodiversity, all of which contribute to greater resilience across the whole sourcing region. It’s great to have Danone on board and we’re looking forward to seeing the difference to farmers and the landscape.
Donald Lunan, LENs CEO
The aim is not simply to deliver individual environmental improvements, but to build greater resilience across the sourcing region as a whole.
Being a third-generation farmer means looking beyond today’s harvest and investing in the future of the farm. As climate change presents new challenges, the support from Alpro and LENs is enabling us to take meaningful action now to improve the resilience of our land. It’s an investment not just in our farm, but in ensuring we can continue growing oats for generations to come.
Richard Maddever, LENs-funded farmer, East of England
Watch the Danone video featuring Richard, shot on his farm in August 2026. Read our interview with Richard.
