La Granja is France's largest regenerative organic almond orchard, servicing the growing demand for fully traceable plant-based products. The farm had been producing conventional corn for 30 years, exporting it to Spain’s pork industry. This French corn was fed to pigs in fattening stations. They were then sent to slaughterhouses, chopped off, sliced, packed, and then shipped back to France, ending up on our supermarket shelves. This struck us as a complete agroeconomic non-sense. We have managed to secure the farm through a 25-year lease and converted it to organic, planting 64ha of organic almond trees. We started as well rotating soy, buckwheat, sunflower, spelt, winter oats, winter wheat, sorghum. This makes the 1st farm in France to obtain regenagri certification. Today we are France’s largest organic almond orchard to have the Label Bas Carbone, with an estimated 4575 tons of CO2 captured for the next 20 years.

The Environmental Benefits

• •France imports more than 95% of its almond consumption: la Granja contributes to the relocation of almond production in Europe, with an expected 100 tons of almonds produced by 2030.
• •Almond trees planted in Toulouse with the Solution can withstand cold winters and survive extremely hot summers and do not require much irrigation to provide revenues.
• •The organic orchards capture on average 3 tons of CO2eq per hectare per year, in total were counted 4575 tons of emission reductions recognized by the Ministry of Environment
• •On of the key principles of regenerative agriculture is to avoid leaving the soil bare: cover crops are planted depending on the soil, climate and purpose, a mixture of adapted species is offered to enhance the soil
• •Cover crops do also provide spaces for fauna, crop auxiliaries, and flora, and restore soil organic matter
• •Contribution to water quality: being organic, the decrease in inputs (no more chemicals) use prevents contamination in water run-off

The Financial Benefits

• •Converting a farm engaged in conventional monocropping to a regenerative orchard can provide a considerable gross margin increase per hectare
• •The IRR of regenerative organic orchards is in the high single digit zone, cash flows are then steady for 25 years

Target client profile

• Individual
• Business

Activity Region

• Headquarters
• Activity

Company Profile

GreenPods

GreenPods is a fully integrated regenerative agriculture farm developer, specializing in tree nuts.

Headquarters 75003 Paris, France

Type Company

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Networking Partner

ADEME

ADEME - The French Agency for Ecological Transition- is a public agency under the joint authority of the Ministry for an Ecological Transition and the Ministry for Higher Education, Research and Innovation.

Solutions Associated 52

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Related Topics

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Sustainable Agriculture

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Sustainable Development Goals

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