European food innovation coalition launches €30 million Portfolio to accelerate and scale regenerative agriculture
- The Regenerative Innovation Portfolio will demonstrate and deploy innovative, scalable regenerative agriculture solutions across Europe
- Portfolio follows a landscape-based approach, ensuring solutions are tailored to local contexts and with cross-sectoral collaboration across agrifood value chains
- EIT Food will match corporate partner funding up to €15 million over three years
A coalition of food innovation organisations has launched the Regenerative Innovation Portfolio, which aims to leverage regenerative agriculture's potential in Europe by demonstrating innovative pathways and scaling existing initiatives through new partnerships across agrifood value chains.
EIT Food – the world’s largest food innovation community – will deploy €15 million to support the Portfolio, to be matched against funding from corporate partners. EIT Food is supported by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), a body of the European Union.
The Regenerative Innovation Portfolio is an ecosystem collaboration, established as a Food Innovation Hub Europe Initiative of the World Economic Forum, and delivered by EIT Food and Foodvalley NL. The Portfolio takes a landscape-level approach, going beyond individual farms to consider collaborative approaches that span multiple sectors, working at a larger scale
To date, the Regenerative Innovation Portfolio has already identified five potential priority landscapes throughout Europe where multiple stakeholders – such as regional governments, investors, and retailers – have mutual interests and complimentary sourcing needs. Within these landscapes, the Portfolio aims to foster greater collaboration across sectors and value chains to help farmers make the transition to regenerative agriculture practices
EIT Food will match partner contributions of €5 million per year for three years building up to a potential total investment of €30 million. Additionally, some activities in the Portfolio may be designed to generate a return, which will be re-invested in the Portfolio. All funding will be used to launch and support Portfolio landscape initiatives, ecosystem development and inter-landscape learning in a community, as well as actively support initiative participants with applications for external funding, including government subsidies, public and private grants, and VC and angel investments.
“It is crucial that we establish a future-fit food system for all: a transition that can only be achieved by prioritising systemic, regenerative approaches to agriculture, in a way that keeps farmers front and centre and fosters collaboration between all stakeholders in the food chain.
“By matching funding from partners that invest in landscape level collaborations in the Regenerative Innovation Portfolio, EIT Food aims to enable a significant commitment to the regenerative transition within Europe.”
“We have already seen significant efforts and initiatives from farmers and cooperatives in the shift to regenerative agriculture. The Regenerative Innovation Portfolio will be crucial in helping to practically scale and expand these approaches.
“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.”
Corporates that are involved in the Portfolio stand to derive several benefits from the Portfolio's collaborative, landscape-based approach. In practice, farmers do not supply to a single off-taker, but supply a range of commodities to numerous stakeholders, making close collaboration between off-takers essential to allow for the production of a broad range of regenerative crops and products at scale. To this aim, the Portfolio brings off-takers together and fosters new types of innovative, cross-value chain sourcing models. Furthermore, by sharing costs, knowledge and experiences, the Portfolio allows corporates to benefit from complementary capabilities and resources.
Notes to editor:
For more information and interview enquiries, please contact communication@eitfood.eu.
About EIT Food
EIT Food is the world’s largest and most dynamic food innovation community. We accelerate innovation to build a future-fit food system that produces healthy and sustainable food for all.
Supported by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), a body of the European Union, we invest in projects, organisations and individuals that share our goals for a healthy and sustainable food system. We unlock innovation potential in businesses and universities and create and scale agrifood startups to bring new technologies and products to market. We equip entrepreneurs and professionals with the skills needed to transform the food system and put consumers at the heart of our work, helping build trust by reconnecting them to the origins of their food.
We are one of nine innovation communities established by the European Institute for Innovation & Technology (EIT), an independent EU body set up in 2008 to drive innovation and entrepreneurship across Europe.
Find out more at www.eitfood.eu or follow us via social media:
Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram.
About FoodValley
By 2050, the food system must provide food security for 10 billion people worldwide. Tasty, affordable, healthy and sustainable food, produced with respect for animals and our planet: It is a big challenge, but one that is achievable if we join forces to shape the future of food together. The urgency is clear, but there are obstacles that individual parties cannot overcome on their own.
As a Practice Leader, Foodvalley guides parties from thoughts and ambitions into practice. We are an independent organisation, driving collective action with frontrunners across sectors and countries. We bolster the ecosystem by providing access to the right people, financial resources, shared facilities and best practices. The result: viable businesses and new healthy sustainable sectors.
Join the journey, shaping the future of food together.
Find out more at http://www.foodvalley.nl/ or follow us on LinkedIn.
