Restoring hope, and creating futures to believe in

Some of the most important things we grow at Domaine de Graux can't be weighed or packaged. It’s the curiosity that lights up a child's face when they discover what's living in the soil. The conversation between a chef and a farmer that changes the menu, and eventually the supply chain.

Our farm is a living platform for dialogue, learning, and possibility; where children, farmers, consumers, retailers, chefs, policymakers, and researchers meet within the same ecosystem. We believe that proximity to land changes people, and we actively create the conditions for it to happen. 

Through our outdoor schooling partnership with Le CRIE de Mouscron, children spend time on the farm across the seasons, learning with their hands and building lasting connections to food, soil, and nature. We also host interns from across the world and support people transitioning from conventional careers into regenerative agriculture. We are currently expanding our programming with a growing offer of workshops, trainings, and learning experiences designed for professionals, students, producers, and curious citizens alike.

Impact in numbers

In 2026 3 schools participated in CRIE de Mouscron's outdoor schooling program

A space for exploration and honest dialogue

Our farm includes a 200 m² agroecology museum, offering an immersive space to explore the history, complexity, and future of farming. Because understanding where we come from and how we are producing what we eat, is part of knowing where we're going.

Year-round, Domaine de Graux operates as a space for honest dialogue. We welcome the difficult conversations: about trade-offs, about failures, about what "regenerative" really means in practice. Our ambition is not to present a perfect model, but a replicable one.

We share our practices, our data, and our challenges openly. Through our Research and Innovation Committee, we bring together agronomists, farmers, and other food experts to co-develop solutions and push our own thinking further. We are also a founding member of Farm For Good, a cooperative of farmers transitioning to organic, regenerative agriculture, through which we test new crops, exchange best practices, and contribute to the collective acceleration of the transition across the region.

Rebuilding soil, biodiversity and climate resilience

Here, nature is designed into the landscape. Silvo-pasture, hedgerows, grass strips, and biodiversity corridors placed every 60 metres create a continuous mosaic of habitats. Our 12 ponds provide water regulation, support wildlife, and underpin essential ecosystem services.

Our orchard is home to around 300 trees across about a hundred varieties, and is recognised under the Label Vergers Vivants for serving as a repository of genetic diversity and limiting the narrowing of our food heritage.

Our farming practices work with nature, not against it: permanent soil cover, agroforestry, and zero synthetic pesticides or fertilisers across the entire farm. 

Soil health, bee hotels and nesting boxes

Soil health is at the heart of our work. Our soils currently hold 3–6% organic matter and 15–30 µg of microbial DNA per gram of soil (data of 2023). These values are significantly higher than the 0–3% organic matter and 1–3 µg microbial biomass typically found in conventionally managed fields. These are not just numbers. Soils with more organic matter can notably hold more water, thereby dramatically improving resilience during drought or extreme rainfall. These indicators guide our grazing management, crop rotations, and cover crop decisions. In 2026, we started collaborating with Farm For Good to develop a soil health monitoring protocol that will be both scientifically rigorous and accessible to other farms.

Our Black Angus herd grazes rotationally on pasture and in the orchards, rotating across the farm in a way that is good for them and for the land, stimulating organic matter accumulation without overworking any single area. We raise resilient breeds; chosen for their fit with our landscape. We monitor welfare closely, keep our herd sizes at levels the land can genuinely support, and work only with abattoirs and processors who meet our standards.

In partnership with BeeOdiversity, we've been monitoring pollinator activity across the Domaine since 2023, tracking seasonal occupancy patterns alongside pollen and soil analyses that confirm near-zero pesticide presence, a strong signal of ecosystem health.

Our orchards host 45 nest boxes for birds including chickadees, little owls, barn owls, and kestrels – all vital allies in natural pest regulation. And in 2026 we conducted a comprehensive ecological survey of the Domaine in partnership with Biotope Environment, covering insects, birds, bats, plants, and habitats.

An event venue built for impact

Our commitment also extends to welcoming guests responsibly. Our approach to energy management was designed with sobriety in mind: automated presence sensors, an automatic system to turn off heating and lighting in unoccupied spaces, no televisions in guest rooms, etc. The Barn has photovoltaic panels integrated on its roof, which will cover around 40% of our annual electricity consumption, all self-consumed on site. The remainder is covered by green electricity contracts.

Water is managed with the same care. Impermeable surfaces across the site are kept to a minimum, allowing rainwater to infiltrate naturally. Our goal is to maintain the natural water cycle: rain that falls on the Domaine stays on the Domaine, recharging the local water table and feeding the agricultural soils. Rainwater is collected on-site, and pond water is used to meet the needs of our livestock, closing the loop on how the Domaine uses the water it naturally receives.

This also extends to how we build. During the ambitious 2025–2026 renovation of the farm buildings, environmental stewardship guided every decision, and more than 75% of materials were chosen with the environment in mind. The timber-frame construction of The Barn is the most visible example. We’re proud of that result, given the real technical and economic challenges of renovating responsibly.

Climate resilience is a long-term commitment, not a one-time exercise. We will continue assessing our operational footprint and exploring concrete ways to go further by reducing emissions, continue building soil carbon, and strengthening the farm's resilience to a changing climate.

Read here our Climate Action Plan

Finally, the ecological health of a landscape is only as strong as its weakest patch. This is why we actively work beyond our own boundaries, encouraging neighbouring farmers and landowners to adopt regenerative practices and create a wider biodiversity network. As signatories of the Mission Soil Manifesto, we have committed to the protection and regeneration of soil health as a matter of public and ecological urgency.

Building meaningful work and thriving communities

Regeneration is as much about people as it is about ecosystems: the health of a farm and the health of its community are deeply connected, with our core team at the heart of Domaine de Graux.

Investing in our team

In practice, this means investing in the people who make the Domaine what it is. We support each team member’s development through external training, opportunities to learn from peers and experts, and the time and space to deepen their skills over time. We regularly check in on wellbeing to understand how everyone experiences their work. Farming and hospitality are demanding work, and creating healthy, comfortable working conditions matters just as much as any other measure of impact.

Long-term partnerships

We collaborate with a close network of long-term expert partners. Together, we prove something important: regenerative agriculture can create stable livelihoods, meaningful jobs, and a workplace people are proud to be part of.

Training the next generation

We invest in the next generation of farmers and food professionals too. We welcome year-round students from schools and training centres, including IFAPME, because the transition we are working toward depends on people being trained for it. That constant exchange of fresh perspectives keeps us humble, open to new ways of thinking, and eager to keep learning.

A place for everyone

Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion are embedded in how we farm, hire, welcome guests, and show up in our community. This means the language we use, the way we design our workshops and events, the accessibility of our spaces, and the diversity of the people we invite to the table. Our ambition: a place where everyone feels respected, valued, and able to contribute.

Respecting human rights across our value chain

Beyond our own walls, we are committed to respecting human rights across our entire value chain. We work with suppliers and partners who share our values, and we require all of them to adhere to our Supplier Code of Conduct, covering fair labor conditions, responsible sourcing, transparency, and zero tolerance for forced or child labor.

Investing in the local food economy

We choose to buy local, source from cooperatives, and invest in the regional food economy. Our procurement philosophy supports farmers and producers who are building the same kind of system we are, including partners like Farm For Good, Cultivaé, and la Coop Alimentaire (Tournai). When we source for the Domaine, we are making a bet on local resilience.

Many of our farm products are co-produced with local artisans who share our belief that the shortest distance between field and plate is almost always the best one.  

We engage actively with organisations, from knowledge building to supply chain initiatives or wildlife actions, because the challenges we face go beyond any single farm.

Art and culture

Culture and creativity also have a place here. We collaborate with local artists whose work is present across the Domaine. Art and farming, it turns out, ask similar questions: about patience, about attention, about what it means to tend something carefully over time.

Advocating for change

Lastly, we advocate for policies that support the transition to regenerative agriculture. Through our involvement with UNAB, the union of organic farmers in Belgium, we contribute to collective action on the issues that matter most: fair farmer income, biodiversity policy, and the conditions needed for organic and regenerative agriculture to scale. And we do so transparently, guided by our Responsible Lobbying Policy. Because how we engage in public debate is as important as what we say.

Proving regenerative agriculture is economically viable

As a certified B Corp, Domaine de Graux is built on the premise that business can be a force for good and that a farm can be both socially responsible and financially resilient. These are not competing goals. We challenge the widespread assumption that agroecology cannot be profitable at scale. Our work is, in part, an ongoing proof of concept.

Our business model is diversified by design and does not depend on a single activity; everything depends on everything else. The Angus herd grazes the orchard, reducing maintenance costs while enriching the soil. The manure replaces external fertiliser inputs. Remove one element and the others are weakened. Strengthen one and the benefits ripple across the whole farm.

This interdependency is the source of both our resilience and our long-term profitability potential.

Domaine de Graux operates across 120 ha and four integrated business units:

• 60 ha of field crops across nine varieties,

• a 6 ha conservatory orchard,

• a 1 ha market garden growing 30+ vegetables,

• and a herd of around 50 Black Angus cows scaling toward 100 heads.

In 2025, field crops generated €129k in turnover; roughly half coming from subsidies, reflecting both market sales and the support that makes this transition viable. Orchard products (juice, cider, jam, walnut oil and flour) generated €17k and are profitably growing. Black Angus beef generated €24k with strong per-animal margins as the herd scales. Lastly, the market garden reached €66.5k on track toward break-even by year five.

Our farm products are more than seasonal delicacies: from jams made with orchard varieties to walnut oil and pasture-raised beef, each one reflects deliberate choices about what we grow, how we process it, who we partner with, and the ecosystem behind it, anchoring the culinary identity of our farm-to-table restaurant.

We're transparent about the reality of this work: the transition is long, the investments are real, and the economic model is still maturing. We believe that honesty about the path is more valuable, and more credible, than a polished success story.