Big Food Companies Commit to ‘regenerative Agriculture’ but Skepticism Remains

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Will Cannon does more to sequester carbon than the average U.S. farmer.

After he harvests his corn and soybeans, he plants cover crops, which sequester carbon all winter long, on his entire 1,000-acre operation in Prairie City, Iowa. He’s avoiding tilling, or plowing, his soil as much as possible, which helps keep carbon stored in the ground.

“I’ve kind of had a passion for conservation all my life,” he says. “We’ve always been pushing the envelope on what we’re trying to do.”

Cannon is getting help to finance this climate-friendly way of farming, which costs him thousands of dollars for additional machinery and seed, from the kinds of companies that ultimately buy his product. Footing the bill in his case is PepsiCo and Unilever, which own food brands ranging from Lay’s and Gatorade to Hellman’s and Ben & Jerry’s.

This kind of cross-supply chain partnership could become increasingly common. A consortium of 12 food companies, including Mars, PepsiCo and McDonald’s, announced a plan to scale up the amount of regenerative farmland. The plan was released just days before the 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27) in Egypt.

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Regenerative Agriculture’s Critical Role in Stabilizing Our Climate

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It is no exaggeration to suggest that combating climate change has become the most important human endeavor of the 21st century. Driven by the confluence of rapid population growth and the industrialization of societies across the globe, increased levels of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere are contributing to consistently higher temperatures, melting icecaps, rising seas, and more frequent natural disasters that threaten our way of life on Earth.

A 2021 study by the World Meteorological Organization found that the number of weather-related disasters to hit the world has increased five-fold since 1970. These disasters have included hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, droughts, wildfires, and other extreme events. The collective loss of human lives, destruction of property and natural habitats, and economic impacts of the events have been staggering, and scientists have warned that things will continue to worsen before they can get better. Without swift, decisive, and coordinated action by world leaders, businesses, industries, and the public, the long-term effects of climate change could prove utterly catastrophic.

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Why King Arthur Sees Regenerative Agriculture As a Collective CPG Effort

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King Arthur believes it can fully revamp its supply chain over the next eight years, but it knows the arduous task of doing so will require collaboration, both with farmers and other industry leaders.

The flour company released a set of sustainability goals it aims to hit by 2030 last month, which it believes will lessen the overall carbon footprint of its wheat operations. Specifically, King Arthur is targeting the emissions generated in its supply chain — 100% of the flour in its bags will be milled from regeneratively grown wheat, and its facilities will use 100% renewable electricity.

Other goals include achieving 100% circular packaging by using fibers produced without deforestation and containing a minimum of 50% post-consumer recycled content, as well as achieving zero waste to landfills from its facilities by 2030 through recycling and composting, King Arthur said on its website.
To help meet these targets, the flour company is building on its relationship with farmers and assisting them in implementation of climate-friendly practices.

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Regenerative Agriculture – Let Nature Work for You

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Accurate placement of nutrients not only brings an economic benefit but an environmental one as well. To help achieve the goal of providing the plant with the food when it needs it, producers should look to the 4R Nutrient Stewardship program.

“The 4Rs are important from not only an agronomic perspective, but also soil health and water quality,” says Evan Brehm, Iowa Soybean Association (ISA) conservation agronomist.

The 4R concept incorporates the right fertilizer source at the right rate, time and place.

Brehm says being mindful of the nutrient sources used for fertilizer and using split applications of nitrogen work toward 4R stewardship efforts. Also tissue sampling or sap analysis tests help optimize crop health and nutrient management.

“We can use in-season field imagery to help us locate areas that may need more nutrients than others, so we are putting those nutrients in the right place,” Brehm says.

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Can Regenerative Agriculture Regenerate the US Food System?

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Can regenerative ag regenerate the US food system? Kara Brewer Boyd thinks so. The farmer and rancher of about 1,500 acres in Southside, Virginia is also a member of the Lumbee Tribe and founder and president of the Association of American Indian Farmers.

“Being an Indigenous person here in North America, I highly value food security and resilience — as we’ve always grown and produced food to feed our families, tribal communities and others,” she says.

Indigenous people were utilizing regenerative farming practices — from no-till and companion planting to crop rotations and pollinating buffer strips — well before many other segments of agriculture. And they have done so by making decisions with forethought of the next seven generations: “Take some, leave some; and there will always be some for future generations.”

As we reported a year ago, the agricultural community is taking a new look at these old practices in hopes that we can use nature’s proven, time-tested principles to help mitigate climate change and feed a growing population more sustainably.

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Why African Groups Want Agroecology at Centre of Cop27 Climate Adaptation Talks

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As the annual world climate conference set to be held next month in Egypt draws closer, civil society groups, scientists, environmentalists, academics and consumers from across Africa are building momentum for agroecology to be placed at the centre of adaptation talks.

The 27 th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – known simply as COP 27 – will take place in November at Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.

African groups believe that with more than 200 million people undernourished every year in Africa and given the harmful effects of industrial agriculture coupled with slow progress towards food security attributed to climate change, there is a need to change course and adopt a more sus-tainable farming system.

Participants at a three-day conference organised by the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) in partnership with the Consortium for Climate Change Ethiopia and the Environment Protection Authority last month said agroecology was Africa’s surest path to food sovereignty and an essential climate adaptation and mitigation measure.

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Renaming Regenerative Agriculture Could Open Doors

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SHOULD the term ‘regenerative agriculture’ be changed to encourage more growers to adopt the practices encompassed within the emerging industry?

This was the topic that was debated by speakers during the University of Western Australia Public Policy Institute’s recent webinar, Sustainable food systems: food production & security in a changing climate.

Based in Western Australia, Wheatbelt Development Commission director regional development, I-Lyn Loo, called the term “divisive”.

She said using different language may reduce the level of pull-back from growers and others in the agricultural industry.

“In the end, regenerative agriculture is quite a contentious term still,” Ms Loo said.

“It is getting more mainstream now… as we are moving into the early adopter phase.

“There are challenges in accepting that term.”

She said often the term implies that growers need to change their practices in order to consider themselves good land managers.

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Managing Plant Surplus Carbon to Generate Soil Organic Matter in Regenerative Agriculture

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Soil degradation is a global problem. A third of the planet’s land is already severely degraded, and soil is being degraded at a speed that threatens the health of the planet and the civilizations that depend on it (Whitmee et al. 2015). Depletion of soil organic carbon (SOC) resulting from extractive agriculture is a key driver of soil degradation (Lal et al. 2015). Much of this SOC has been released to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide (CO2), a potent greenhouse gas contributing to ongoing climate change, including extreme weather events. Soil degradation also diminishes water infiltration and retention, biodiversity, watershed functions, and the nutritional value of food. Reversing soil degradation is a top global priority (UNCCD 2017).

Yields of major crops have increased substantially in the last century, primarily through intensive chemical fertilization. However, the greater aboveground plant biomass production resulting from chemical fertilization has usually not led to proportional gains in plant inputs to soil and soil organic matter (SOM) accrual.

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Love Regenerative Agriculture? Thank Indigenous Peoples

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“Regenerative agriculture” has become a bigtime buzz word(s) in farming circles in recent years. And for good reason.

It is, in short, a system of farming principles and a set of practices that seeks to rehabilitate and enhance the entire ecosystem of the farm. Those practices include conservation tillage (aka, as little soil disturbance as possible), crop rotation, and polyculture – the planting of compatible, supportive plant species together to limit pests, suppress weeds, and improve the health of the soil.

Importantly, regenerative agriculture is one way farmers are responding to the climate crisis.

The benefits of doing so are numerous: Regenerative practices increase soil biodiversity and organic matter, leading to more resilient soils that can better withstand climate change impacts like flooding and drought. Healthy soils beget higher yields and nutrient-rich crops. It also diminishes erosion and fertilizer runoff, leading to improved water quality on and off the farm.

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‘Viable, Just & Necessary’: Agroecology Is a Movement in Brazil

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The Landless Workers Movement in Brazil (or MST, its acronym in Portuguese) is one of the largest social movements in the world. Born in the early 1980s at the end of the country’s 21-year military dictatorship and in the midst of persistent land inequality, the movement has been at the forefront of land reform in Brazil for decades. Their work is focused on making a reality of the country’s constitutional promise that land should ‘serve a social purpose.’ Against a backdrop of great inequality – 10% of the largest farms occupy nearly three-quarters of agricultural land – the MST has been organizing families to occupy, settle, and farm throughout the country.

In the four decades since its creation, the MST has organized more than 350,000 families to create communities, cooperatives, farms, small-scale food processing enterprises, and farmers markets. An additional 90,000 families still live in informal encampments on contested land, struggling for official land title.

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