A exploração familiar Agro Beloni obtém a certificação regenagri para a sua cultura de café

Adriana, Fernando and Carmelo Beloni come from a long family history for Brazilian farmers. They are following in the footsteps of their mother’s grandfather who originally started growing potatoes. They have built successful enterprise in the Cerrado Region of Minas Gerais state, where AgroBeloni now produce not just potatoes, but also onions, corn, soy, beans, wheat, sorghum and of course coffee.

Being third generation farmers, it makes sense that they should take a long-term view of the health of their land and their business, and it was this long-term view which lead them to adopt regenerative techniques across their 5,500 hectares.

In order to tackle problems with nematodes, fungi and bacteria, the AgroBeloni team decided to employ a 10-year crop rotation and cover cropping plan in order to allow time for soil health and crop resilience to improve. Employing no-till seeding methods and using grasses, and cover crops including crotalaria, millet, buckwheat and oats they are actively regenerating their land and improving the quality and yield of their crops.

The organic waste they are producing from their crops and cover crops is now composted to be reintroduced into the soil as organic fertilizer for their coffee plantation. This, in conjunction with biological control such as :bacteria, fungi and yeast is allowing them to significantly reduce their reliance on chemical inputs and pesticides – down 30% for their coffee plantation compared to 2015/2016 data.

One of their coffee clients within their supply chain was eager to see evidence of the regeneration taking place on AgroBeloni land, and regenagri certification has offered them just that. AgroBeloni have become the first coffee producer to achieve regenagri certification.

Fernando Beloni comments:

Regenagri certification gives us recognition of our efforts to improve the health of our coffee crop

Whilst Filippo Guerrini from regenagri adds:

Read more about the AgroBeloni aqui.