Regenerative agriculture and organic principles go hand-in-hand, giving back to the land. Regenerative agriculture also helps us shrink our carbon footprint and makes our partner farms more productive and efficient. It’s a win-win-win way to farm. Here’s a quick explanation of regen ag principles.
Did you know healthy soil actually traps carbon underground? Healthy soil is the foundation for growing nutritious, resilient crops. Full of organic matter and living microbes, a healthy soil microbiome retains water and prevents erosion. Worms and insects call it home too.
Ways we partner with farmers to boost soil health
Biodiversity means the variety of different kinds of species and organisms in one place, like on a farm. Having biodiversity helps the ecosystem be more resilient, adapt better to climate change, and improve agricultural production. It’s important to include native plant species on farms too, instead of just growing feed crops.
Ways we’ve partnered with farmers for more biodiversity
Water is life. With ongoing drought in many parts of the country and our changing climate, water is becoming more and more scarce. We’re always looking at new technologies to help decrease water usage. We’re helping our farmers move towards more sustainable water management, leveraging rain water, reclaimed/recaptured/recycled water, and natural surface water like lakes and rivers.
Tech we’re using to help farmers use less water
About 15% of Horizon Organic’s carbon footprint comes from manure, so we’re working with our farmer partners to cut that number by improving how we deal with it. Dairy cows also put out a lot of GHGs by burping (in a process called enteric fermentation for you science fans), sending about 44 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions in the U.S. every year*. All this burping accounts for about 20% of the carbon footprint of our milk.
Ways we partner with our farmers to help cut GHGs
