Danone, General Mills (maker of Yoplait yogurt and Häagen-Dazs ice cream, among other big dairy brands), and yogurt maker Stonyfield have all recently launched soil health programs specifically aimed at dairy producers.
The voluntary programs, which offer training, tech support, and financial assistance, are seen as key to transforming dairy farms—a major source of emissions—into “carbon sinks,” allowing Big Food companies to reduce their carbon footprints and open up new avenues to market their products.
Blake Alexandre, who co-runs Alexandre Family Farm, the first regenerative organic dairy certified in the U.S., said he’s glad large corporations are running regenerative agriculture programs to offer additional financial and tech support to farmers who want to make the switch. But, he added, he’s also afraid the term “regenerative” might get co-opted and whitewashed by Big Food, just like “natural” and “organic” did—leaving individual farms like his behind.
“What if big companies take the term, the concept,” Blake Alexandre said, “but they don’t live it . . . and it becomes just a marketing thing?”
