The story
Entrepreneurs around the world sell products coming from the process of landscape restoration. Check out these products coming from 4 Returns Landscapes in Spain, Australia, South Africa and the Netherlands.
Next to inspiration, social and natural returns, landscape restoration creates financial opportunity. Rehabilitating land offers new income streams for farmers and land stewards. Entrepreneurs ready to innovate can create businesses that enhance and promote practices like restoring soil and boosting biodiversity. Such businesses can sell products that connect consumers with the process of restoration, the healing of landscapes. And as degraded areas grow into landscapes of abundance, so does the possibility for business innovation.
Sustainable business as a driver for landscape restoration is key to the 4 Returns Framework. That’s because healthy landscapes and resilient production systems lead to higher quality and more reliable harvests for producers, as well as diversified income streams. Below are four of the many amazing products that originate from 4 Returns landscapes.
Regenerative Almonds
The Altiplano in southern Spain is home to more than 100,000ha of rainfed almond production. Yet the landscape is also threatened by desertification. Producing almonds with regenerative systems presents a huge opportunity to farm while combatting desertification, through creating fertile soil and improving water retention. La Almendrehesa is a company that, in collaboration with farmers working with AlVelAl, markets almonds produced in integrated and ecological systems. Their star product is Pepita de Oro (Golden Nugget). The almonds within this range are large, of the highest quality, with skin but without being toasted – to maintain the original flavour and maximum nutritional value. Each crunchy bite connects consumers to the regeneration of soil and countryside. The almonds are full of good fats, proteins, minerals, vitamins and antioxidants – a product that fits right into a healthy Mediterranean diet.
Pepita de Oro almonds are of superior quality, and their production leads to landscape and soil restoration.
Carbon-neutral Oat Milk
Plant-based milk is on the rise. Consumers are increasingly choosing vegan and healthy alternatives for their cooking or coffee. Together with Dirty Clean Food – an online food platform from Wide Open Agriculture – farmers in the Western Australian Wheatbelt are now serving this market. Regeneratively farmed oats are harvested to produce OatUP: a delicious and plant-based milk. The oats are farmed with holistic management and rotated with grains like lupin and wheat, ensuring soil health. OatUp is blended and developed to guarantee a creamy product full of the right minerals. And the milk is certified as carbon-neutral by Climate Active, an Australian government backed initiative. So, consumers can enjoy a frothy plant-based latte, safely in the knowledge that their choice is regenerating landscape in Western Australia.
OatUp is the world’s first carbon-neutral plant-based milk which is made of regeneratively farmed oats.
Organic rosemary oil
The Baviaanskloof Valley in South Africa is a biodiversity hotspot full of rare and unique flora and fauna. However, the landscape has suffered from severe degradation over the last centuries. A group of farmers are now pioneering an essential oil industry in this landscape to rehabilitate the land. The Baviaanskloof Devco collaborate with Grounded and Living Lands, to experiment with regenerative farming while cultivating organic rosemary. The rosemary is distilled at the Devco’s essential processing facility. Essential oils are concentrated plant extracts that capture a plant’s essence, aroma and characteristics. Rosemary essential oil is known to be calming and it is connected to several health benefits like easing stress, pain relief and reducing inflammation. The essential oil can be purchased on Grounded Ingredients: a platform that connects conscious brands with products that retain their origin story.
The essential oil is distilled from rosemary regeneratively cultivated by farmers part of the Baviaanskloof Devco.
Restorative Dutch Tea
The Wilder Land herbal tea range is produced with Dutch dairy farmers working with Wij.land in the Western Peat Meadows. The Wilder Land team noticed that although the demand for herbal tea is growing in the Netherlands, there is almost no herbal tea grown in the country. From calming “offline blends” to uplifting “Holy Smokey”, the tea range offers something for everyone. Herbs are sown in the spring and are ready for harvest just a few months later, allowing for short-term cultivation and production. Growing diverse herbs restores nature, creates fertile soil and enhances biodiversity. The herbs provide farmers with an alternative income stream, thus supporting the transition to regenerative agriculture in the Netherlands.
Wilder Land tea blends are produced in collaboration with Dutch dairy farmers, supporting a regenerative transition in The Netherlands.
Entrepreneurs for landscape restoration
These are just a handful of amazing products that are made while rehabilitating degraded areas. The people behind these products know from experience that it is possible to generate social, natural, inspiration and financial returns from landscape restoration. Their innovation and nature-based thinking ensures the creation of fertile soil, protection of biodiversity, resilience of harvest and the connection of consumers to landscape restoration. And as more entrepreneurs around the world begin the process of landscape restoration, the wealth of healthy products will only increase.
