Corporations have come together to launch regenerative agriculture frameworks under the banner of the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative. More than 30 corporations in the global food and agriculture value chain are leading the Regenerating Together program, including Ahold Delhaize, Barry Callebaut, Bayer, Cargill, the Coca-Cola Company, Danone, Diageo, Kellogg’s, Kraft Heinz Co., McDonald's, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Starbucks, Syngenta, Unilever, and Yara.
Regenerative agriculture has five core principles:
Minimize soil disturbance.
Maximize crop diversity.
Keep soil covered.
Maintain living roots year-round.
Integrate livestock, when appropriate.
Drivers of business engagement in regenerative agriculture are in two categories:
Improving the resilience of commodity supply in a context of growing price volatility caused (among others) by changing weather patterns.
Delivering on their scope 3 climate targets.
Where there is room for growth is mainstreaming research on the sustainability-yield overlap with large corporates needing to completely acknowledge how environmental factors from climate change, water stress, chemical dispersion, and biodiversity loss have on the impacts on yield. To further scale regenerative agriculture requires increasing funding and improving data and making data interoperable.
Institutions also need to deploy frameworks for a common understanding of regenerative agriculture.
The SAI four step process allows for firms to deploy these regenerative agriculture definitions within a framework by answering key questions.
Regenerative agriculture will increase in importance to corporates, investors, and lenders in the food and agriculture sector. Smart business leaders will begin piloting regenerative agriculture frameworks earlier than later to understand how regenerative agriculture will impact their strategy over the long run.
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