Regenerative agriculture can look different from one dairy to the next. On some farms, it shows up in technology and precision crop management; on others, in recycled nutrients, reduced tillage or new ways to connect feed, cows and fields. Each operation has its own path, but the focus stays on finding practical ways to make sustainability pay.
This approach has shaped Danone’s regenerative agriculture work. Instead of handing producers a fixed playbook, the cooperative is working with farms to identify changes that fit their geography, business goals and resources, then measures progress in areas such as soil health, water use, greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity and animal welfare.
“This is not a one-size-fits-all,” explains Greg Wolf from Danone’s regenerative agriculture team. “Every farm is different, every location is different. It’s really about adopting the practices that help the farms succeed, and not just today, but over time. If it doesn’t work for the farmers, it doesn’t work for us.”
The farm-by-farm approach is part of a larger U.S. supply network. The company recently reported its sources about 90% of its ingredients domestically and purchased approximately 200 million gallons of milk from U.S. farms in 2025.
For dairy producers including the McCarty, Van Tilburg and Schwieterman families in Celina, Ohio, the larger supply chain becomes personal at the farm level. Their work is less about chasing a sustainability trend and more about protecting the next generation’s ability to keep farming. Their operations show how regenerative practices can look different from farm to farm while still moving toward the same goal: producing high-quality food with fewer wasted resources.
The McCarty-VanTilburg Partnership
For MVP Dairy, the journey toward sustainable innovation began more than a century ago. The McCarty family’s dairy roots trace back to northeastern Pennsylvania, where Ken McCarty’s great-grandfather began milking a small herd on a hillside farm around 1914. By the early 1990s, realizing the future in Pennsylvania was limited for the next generation, the family made a bold leap west to Rexford, Kansas, building a new operation from scratch in 2000.
“When we first got our start in Kansas, we were just a traditional co-op dairy and really had no tie to where our products went,” says Ken McCarty, one of the farm’s owners.
Everything changed in 2010 when they partnered with Danone. To meet Danone’s quality standards and volume demands, the McCartys scaled up and even built their own milk processing plant in northwest Kansas to make it feasible to connect with the markets that Danone needed them to serve.
Shipping condensed milk directly to Danone started in 2012 and gave the family a clearer line of sight from their cows to the yogurt and products Danone produced. The relationship gave the family a way to move beyond merely staying in business and build a structure that connected production, stewardship and markets in a more intentional way.
Seeking to bring this highly connected, sustainable model closer to Danone’s eastern markets, the McCartys looked to western Ohio in 2016. There, they found the perfect allies: the Van Tilburg family, a fourth-generation crop-farming family with deep roots in Mercer County.
In 2018, the McCarty-VanTilburg Partnership (MVP Dairy) was born. Today, MVP Dairy milks approximately 3,900 cows. The extensive acreage farmed by the Van Tilburgs supplies the herd’s feed and provides a home for the dairy’s recycled nutrients.
Data-Driven Regeneration and Closed Loops
At MVP Dairy, decisions are made with the entire ecosystem in mind. The farm utilizes no-till crop production, grid soil sampling, grass filter strips to protect local waterways, precision irrigation and variable-rate nutrient application.
Their state-of-the-art manure management system is a cornerstone of this closed loop. By recycling nutrients back to the feed fields, the system produces an estimated 60% fewer emissions than traditional manure management. It also generates a recycled water source to irrigate cropland, keeping water working within the farm.
Through its partnership with Danone, MVP Dairy routinely uses third-party assessment tools to establish baselines and measure progress in greenhouse gas emissions, soil health, water management, biodiversity and animal welfare.
“We’ve invested four generations and over 100 years’ worth of blood, sweat, and tears into being here,” McCarty says. “We hope to provide that opportunity for the fifth and future generations.”
Heritage Meets High-Tech Robotics
Not far from MVP, the Schwieterman family operates a historic sixth-generation dairy that balances heritage with high-tech automation. The original farmhouse, built in 1894, still anchors the homestead where generations of Schwietermans have raised their families.
The family’s long history in dairy now continues through an advanced robotic milking system. Installed in 2019 and recently expanded, the farm currently milks about 320 cows with an eye toward reaching 400 by Fall. The Schwietermans are also preparing to bring an automated Lely Vector feeding system online to improve labor efficiency and feed precision.
Their focus on technology and efficiency has helped the Schwietermans become the most feed-efficient-to-milk herd in the entire Danone network.
“We really thrive on our farm on, how can we make more milk with less?” says Mitch Schwieterman, owner and operator. “We’re really looking to how do we make our bottom line even better and make more milk with less input.”
The Non-GMO Transformation
Like the McCartys, the Schwietermans evolved alongside Danone rather than flipping a switch overnight. Originally a conventional dairy, the family moved step by step into a different model, ultimately transitioning 100% of their 1,900 crop acres to non-GMO practices in 2023. The change traces back to what felt like a small experiment — a pilot project that started almost by accident.
The shift also fits into Danone’s broader U.S. sourcing network, which includes both dairy ingredients and supply chains tied to plant-based products.
“The soy program started as just a conversation with the ag team,” Schwieterman recalls. “We planted 18 acres to try it out, and now, between me and a couple of my cousins, we’re growing nearly 2,000 acres of food-grade soybeans for the Danone network.”
Growing soybeans for Danone requires a different approach than planting a commodity crop. The Schwietermans select high-protein, non-GMO varieties based on both how they perform in the field and how they fit the nutritional needs of Danone’s plant-based products.
Once those beans come off the field and out of the on-farm bins, they move to a specialized facility where they are cleaned and “heat hulled.” There, the protective outer coating of each soybean is removed so the inner portion can move on to become Silk and other plant-based products in the Danone portfolio.
The outer layer, though, isn’t considered waste. The non-GMO hulls are trucked back to the Schwieterman dairy, where they are folded straight into the ration as a dependable source of protein and fiber for the milking herd.
Over time, the farm has become more than a milk supplier within the Danone network. Extra corn and feed ingredients not needed for their own TMR are sold to neighboring Danone dairies without the acreage or cropping capacity to raise all of their own feed.
In practice, the Schwieterman fields are feeding more than one barn. Their non-GMO acres, soybeans and cows are tied into a connected supply chain stretching beyond their own lane, but still looping back to the mixer wagon.
Stripping Down Resource Use in the Field
On the Schwieterman farm, resource efficiency is also showing up in how nutrients move from the barn to the field. Instead of waiting until fall to haul manure, the farm is testing an in-season irrigation system, 360 Rain, that can move manure from the barn to growing crops within minutes.
“People see manure that’s in our barns right now. We flush that, and within 10 minutes, we can have that in our field, fertigating our crops,” Schwieterman explains.
The system uses a traveling irrigation unit and an eight-foot toolbar that follows the crop rows, guided by the same mapping used during planting. As it moves through the field, the setup delivers manure where the crop can use it, helping the farm stretch fertilizer dollars and better match nutrients with summer crop demand rather than applying them months later in the fall.
Dry late-summer weather has made that timing even more valuable. By applying manure and water when crops need them most, the Schwietermans can reduce reliance on purchased fertilizer, keep nutrients working in-season and make better use of what is already being produced in the barn.
The setup includes manure pumped under the road to the traveling irrigation unit. As the unit advances, the hose reels out ahead of it, allowing the farm to manage coverage by zone and shut the system off in specific areas as needed.
Working Toward the Same Goal
For both the Schwieterman and McCarty families, regenerative progress is grounded in the quality of the food they produce and the long-term strength of the farms behind it. Danone works alongside its producers to understand each operation, identify where meaningful improvements can be made, and support practical changes that fit the realities of the farm. That collaboration does not look the same in every barn or field, but it starts with the same question: what can help this farm become more efficient, more resilient and better positioned for the future?
Whether it is robotics in the barn, automated manure systems lowering emissions or field practices that reduce inputs while protecting yields, these farms show how individual decisions connect to a larger food system. For the farmers, the work is both practical and personal: building resilient operations that can sustain the land, care for the livestock and create a stronger future for the next generation.
