Key Takeaways
- WBCSD-OP2B and EIT Food have signed a collaboration agreement to implement a blended finance model for large-scale regenerative agriculture transitions in the East of England, with an eye toward replication across other European regions.
- The one-year, co-financed collaboration is backed by a total budget of €185,000 and builds on a farmer-centered, region-level transition finance model that OP2B and its members developed in 2025.
- The model covers an estimated 272,000 hectares, or 40% of the region’s arable land, and 1,645 farms, targeting a transition to regenerative practices across five major crops by 2030.
- Transitioned cropland could be around £764 per hectare better off over ten years than under a conventional pathway, with landscape-scale implementation requiring around £131 million over ten years in blended grants and preferential loans.
- At full scale, the pilot is expected to generate cumulative carbon sequestration of around 3 million tonnes of CO2 by 2035.
EIT Food and WBCSD-OP2B Sign Agreement to Finance Regenerative Agriculture Transition
WBCSD-OP2B and EIT Food have signed a collaboration agreement to implement a blended finance model for large-scale regenerative agriculture transitions in the East of England, while preparing the conditions for its replication and adaptation across other regions in Europe. On July 16, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development’s (WBCSD) One Planet Business for Biodiversity (OP2B), together with its members and partners, said it had developed a farmer-centered, region-level transition finance model in 2025 for the East of England, a major arable farming region in the UK.
The initiative was selected under EIT Food’s 2025 Expression of Interest within its Resilient Agriculture Portfolio, a connected portfolio of agricultural initiatives across Europe designed to deliver coordinated, measurable outcomes across farms, crops and farmers. It is now being implemented through a one-year, co-financed collaboration between EIT Food and WBCSD-OP2B, supported by a total budget of €185,000. The co-financing enables the partners to move from model design, completed in a previous scope of work, to implementation in the region, while preparing a clear pathway for replication in other European regions.
“The East of England pilot marks an important step for EIT Food in integrating a finance model with strong potential for replication and adaptation across our growing portfolio of landscapes in Europe. It shows how targeted co-financing can turn a well-designed transition model into a practical tool for farmers and financial institutions, and it strengthens our ability to bring this approach to other regions facing similar challenges,” said Richard Zaltzman, CEO of EIT Food.
In simple terms, the model is designed to solve one of the biggest barriers to regenerative agriculture: who pays for the transition, and how farmers can make changes without carrying the financial risk alone. It brings together food companies, banks, insurers and public or ecosystem-service funding around a shared regional plan. Farmers receive a clearer package of financial support and incentives to adopt practices such as cover crops, reduced tillage and more diverse rotations, while companies and financial institutions gain a practical way to invest in more resilient supply chains, healthier soils and measurable climate and nature outcomes.
A Finance Model Grounded in Farm Economics
With only a small share of cropland in England currently under regenerative practices, and after consecutive weather-related crop failures in the East of England, the case for a new approach is widely recognised across the region’s agricultural community. The model covers an estimated 272,000 hectares (40% of the region’s arable land) and 1,645 farms, targeting the transition to regenerative practices by 2030 across five major crops: wheat, spring and winter barley, oats and rapeseed. Target practices include cover crops, reduced tillage, diversified rotations, organic fertilisation and on-farm biodiversity measures.
Transitioned cropland could be around £764 per hectare better off over ten years than under a conventional pathway. Reaching this at landscape scale requires around £131 million over ten years, combining outcome-based grants, recoverable grants and preferential loans, a blended structure that could nearly halve transition costs for participating companies while protecting farmer income.
“OP2B was built on the conviction that collective corporate action can transform European agriculture. By driving collaboration among regional stakeholders alongside financial commitments of our member companies, we create the conditions for transition to become viable at scale. This gives farmers the predictability they need and financial institutions the confidence to engage. The East of England is where we are putting that model to the test, with the ambition of demonstrating its value for the rest of Europe,” said Stefania Avanzini, Director, Agriculture and Food, OP2B, WBCSD.
A Coalition Already in Place
The model has been validated with a representative group of landscape stakeholders spanning the full value chain: leading agri-food companies with direct supply chain exposure to the region, farmer organisations, agri-food processors, commercial banks and specialist agricultural insurers, as well as public bodies and NGOs. The headline conclusion from that process is that co-financing and multi-stakeholder collaboration are accepted across all groups as essential to maximising both impact and capital efficiency.
Since 2021, Nestlé has been investing in advancing regenerative agriculture practices in the East of England, demonstrating the value of landscape-level collaboration.
“The partnership with EIT through OP2B offers a strong opportunity to attract the additional investment needed to further accelerate the transition to regenerative agriculture and build a more resilient supply chain,” said Belén Montoya Sancho, Sustainable Sourcing Lead, Nestlé Europe.
What the EIT Food Co-Financing Enables
In this collaboration, OP2B acts as a coalition convener, bringing together agri-food companies whose collective supply chain exposure to the East of England creates a direct financial interest in the region’s long-term agronomic resilience. This collective commitment is what makes the blended finance model bankable: by aggregating corporate demand for transition outcomes, OP2B helps create the conditions under which banks and insurers can offer preferential terms to farmers at landscape scale.
EIT Food brings a pan-European, cross-sector innovation ecosystem through its portfolio of agricultural initiatives and partners across Europe, contributing targeted co-financing and innovation expertise. On the ground, a payments for ecosystem services (PES) marketplace provides the operational foundation for farmer incentivisation, integrated with a robust monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) framework. The co-financing supports two parallel workstreams: the implementation of the East of England financing model through the establishment of a Landscape Transition Platform, and the preparation of a replication playbook for other European regions.
