The year 2022 has demonstrated the importance and urgency of the climate challenges to which the agricultural sector must adapt. Regenerative agriculture is a real opportunity for the agricultural world. It allows to :
- Fight against climate change and preserve resources;
- Improve the potential of each farm in terms of production, sustainability and transmission,
- Respond to new consumer concerns (consumption of plant products, legumes, demand for local products, rejection of deforestation…)
Did you know that “if we increase the carbon stock by 0.04% each year through regenerative agriculture, we could stop the annual increase of CO2 in the atmosphere”?
Let’s take a closer look at our projects for regenerative agriculture.
HONEY PRODUCTION
Our commitment to biodiversity has led us to launch various initiatives. Since September 2022, we have been offering our farmer members a new activity for their farms: beekeeping. Beekeeping is not only a great asset for biodiversity but also and above all a pollination factor for crops. Training courses are currently being offered to our members to launch their beekeeping project with VEGA* Maïsadour. This new activity could also be a source of additional income for farmers. VEGA* Maïsadour will promote farmers’ local honey production to partner distributors.
PLANTING OF USEFUL HEDGES ON A LARGE SCALE
Fighting against soil erosion, storing carbon, sheltering crop auxiliaries, improving water infiltration in the soil, adapting to climate change or improving the well-being of animals, the benefits of hedges are numerous.
For a hedge of 2.2 km or 2,192 shrubs, 13 tons of CO2 are trapped in the soil of a farm every year. In concrete terms, a hedge of this size compensates each year for 13 round trips by plane from Paris to New York or 91,000 km travelled by a diesel vehicle!
VEGA* Maïsadour will soon be offering a turnkey solution to interested farmers, in line with their specific needs: erosion control, windbreaks, low-carbon production, etc. At the same time, VEGA* Maïsadour’s teams are studying how to promote these regenerative farming initiatives to our industrial customers and are seeking public funding to reduce the cost of planting to the farmer.
Our goal is to provide a large-scale turnkey hedge planting service by 2024!
DIVERSIFICATION WITH SOYBEANS
Maïsadour has set itself the challenge of producing 100% Southwestern, non-GMO, non-deforesting soybeans by structuring a “seed to plate” chain to feed Label Rouge Fermiers du Sud-Ouest chickens. Soy has many agronomic advantages: it improves soil structure, does not require the addition of nitrogen, and is not very susceptible to disease and pests. As for irrigation, an adapted management allows to make the best use of the water supply.
