Pure Local

PURE LOCAL

The Pure Local team is a group of motivated Belgian farmers,maltsters and agronomists who bring brewing barley back to Belgian soil. Our growers apply regenerative farming practices to improve biodiversity, soil health and limit the CO2 emissions of your malt. Want to know how?

Pure

For an agriculture that respects the soil and the planet, and a malt of exceptional quality.

Local

+97% of the Barley malted in Belgium is imported. We want to change this and support our local farmers.

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PURE LOCAL VALUES

THE PHILOSOPHY BEHIND PURE LOCAL

WE CARE FOR OUR SOIL

HEALTHY SOILS FOR HEALTHY BARLEY

At Belgomalt, we care about our fields. We realize that it is not an endless source of nutrients and we deeply respect its value. Healthy soil is the basis for growing healthy barley and through regenerative farming we improve soil health and biodiversity.

LESS CO2, MORE WATER ABSORPTION

ENVIRONMENTALLY-FRIENDLY REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE

Throughout the years, traditional agricultural techniques proved their purpose, but more than ever we realize that they make our soils very vulnerable. Today, agriculture contributes to a large proportion of worldwide CO2 emissions, this doesn’t have to be the case. Regenerative agriculture can lead to crops extracting more carbon from the air, strengthening the vitality of the soil and reducing CO2 emission, while turning fallow fields into vibrant green fields covered by cover crops in winter.

Organisms in uncultivated soils emit a continuous amount of CO2. Instead of laying the fields fallow, we can sow it with ground-covering crops. These crops extract CO2 from the air and store it in the earth as nutrition. Moreover, the soil will be protected by a natural cover and it will be easier for rootlets to find their way to deeper layers of the soil to find water and nutrients, therefore use of fertilizers will become less crucial.

AGRICULTARAL COOPERATIVE

80 COMMITTED BELGIAN FARMERS

In the Gembloux region we have a group of farmers who grow malting barley. They take the best possible measures to meet the high quality standards of our brewers. All the farmers apply regenerative farming techniques. Together with our agronomists, our farmers gradually work towards implementing fully regenerative farming techniques to protect our soils. We are able to measure the carbon footprint of these farms.

SUSTAINABILITY

REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE

With Pure Local, Belgomalt is fully committed to regenerative agriculture. To this end, we are working with agricultural advisory organization Regenacterre. Since 2021 Regenacterre registered the Regenerative Agriculture label for those farmers that apply regenerative agricultural techniques.

THE DATA

THE DATA PROVES IT WORKS

As from Crop year 2020 we are measuring the CO2 balance of the Pure Local barley fields.Within the Pure Local program, we can measure the carbon footprint of each barley plot and farm. We work with Soil Capital to calculate the carbon footprint of each Pure Local farmers’ barley crop every year. These results are ISO certified. This graph demonstrates the weighted average CO2 numbers of the Pure Local barley in recent crop years against the average CO2 emissions for barley when cultivated in a conventional way. These low Pure Local numbers represent a huge volume of emissions not being released into the atmosphere, which has a significant impact on the CO2 balance of both the maltings and the breweries. In short, when you buy Pure Local malt, your brewery Scope 3 CO2 emissions will drastically drop.