September 14, 2024
Spotlight Stories
Spotlight 1 – Yale Environment 360 discusses how agroforestry could help revitalize America’s Corn Belt. Check out the story, here.
Spotlight 2 – Bain & Company looks at new models for financing the food transition. Check it out, here.
Spotlight 3 – JD Supra reviews the new frontier of regenerative agriculture certifications. Read about it, here.
Industry Updates
Scientists at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) recently released a study highlighting the role of geospatial maps and satellite data in shaping the future of food security. The study covering an area of 477 million hectares spanning across India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, identified and mapped 27 major cropping systems across an entire year, as opposed to the more traditional single harvest measurement. This time series data provides a new perspective on rethinking and redesigning cropping systems, addressing food security and climate resilience challenges in the near future. Geospatial mapping can inform policies that ensure the efficient distribution of resources like water, fertilizer, and seeds, based on the specific needs of different cropping systems. Additionally, these maps can be integrated into disaster management strategies, helping to identify areas vulnerable to agricultural stress, such as droughts or floods, and allowing for more targeted and effective responses. [link]
The Michigan Farm Bureau Carbon Credits Task Force has completed its work to construct guidelines for carbon credits in the state. Requested by delegates at the 2023 State Annual Meeting and later appointed by the MFB Board of Directors, the task force crafted more than a dozen recommendations for consideration by MFB's State Policy Development Committee at its Oct. 9-10 meeting. The chair of the group noted that the Task Force was focused on making recommendations that ensure growers are the ones being compensated for the credits that are being generated by the practices they’re implementing on their operations. [link]
Mars Incorporated has joined forces with IDH, a global foundation focused on transforming Agri commodities’ markets, and other private sector partners to expand a program aimed at supporting small-scale cattle ranchers in Brazil through good farming practices that contribute to regenerative agriculture. Mars’ Pet Nutrition business will invest €600,000, building on a €80,000 investment from IDH, to further develop the program and expand support to an additional 120 ranchers by the end of 2026. The Sustainable Production of Calves Program, which has been running since 2019 and currently supports 700 small-scale cattle ranchers in three different biomes in Mato Grosso and Pará states of Brazil, aims to improve the sustainability, resilience, and incomes of small-scale cattle production. [link]
Ensuring global food security with a focus on sustainability was the central theme of discussions at the International Agricultural Forum (FIAP), held this past week in Brazil. During the ceremony, the Brazilian Agriculture Minister announced the reopening of beef exports to Canada and new market opportunities for Brazilian DDG (Dried Distillers Grains) in Morocco and Colombia. Mauro Mendes, the governor of Mato Grosso, outlined three major challenges facing Brazilian agribusiness: combating illegal deforestation, developing an effective agricultural insurance system to address climate change, and strengthening Brazil's response to global demands. Helder Barbalho, governor of Pará, a state that preserves 75% of its territory as native forest, stressed the importance of bioeconomy investments and the urgency of regulating the carbon market. [link]
A sweeping global research review published in Science, co-written by professors at the University of Minnesota with more than 20 experts around the world, has examined the links between climate and agriculture. The study revealed the likelihood of an emergent feedback loop in which, as climate change puts more pressure on the global food supply, agriculture adopts practices that further accelerate climate change. The authors also identified new agricultural practices that have the potential to greatly reduce climate impacts, increase efficiency and stabilize our food supply in the decades to come, to include precision farming, perennial crop integration, agrivoltaics, nitrogen fixation, and novel genome editing. [link]
The North Central Region-Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (NCR-SARE) program currently has four open grant programs to fund research and education projects that advance sustainable agricultural practices in the region. These grant programs are for farmers, ranchers, scientists, educators, institutions, organizations, and others exploring sustainable agriculture in the 12 states in the North Central region (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin). Since 1988, NCR-SARE’s competitive grants have advanced agricultural innovation that promotes economic viability, stewardship of the land, air, and water, and quality of life for farmers, ranchers, and their communities. [link]
Over $20 million in grant funding is available for farmers to promote climate friendly practices through Pasa Sustainable Agriculture. These Climate-Smart Farming and Marketing grants, spanning across 15 states, are designed to directly support farmers studying and implementing climate-smart practices. Among those practices are cover cropping and minimal tillage and establishing trees and shrubs. Pasa is currently seeking applicants and hopes to support 2,000 farmers in all. The grant program runs through 2028. [link]
Farmland LP announced an investment from Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund to develop Soil Carbon Credits on its 18,500-acre farm portfolio and expand the market for regenerative soil carbon credits. This work will also include preparing the necessary protocols, a critical step towards increasing regenerative agriculture practices globally to sequester vast amounts of atmospheric CO2 as mineralized soil carbon. Farmland LP will package carbon credits from diverse regenerative agriculture practices, which it expects to generate using Verra’s Verified Carbon Standard, the foremost carbon program in the world. [link]
Bayer has launched its global initiative, ‘Bayer ForwardFarming’, in India - the newest of 29 ForwardFarms worldwide. Each ForwardFarm serves as a beacon of sustainable agricultural practices, providing a platform for farmers, researchers, and stakeholders to collaborate and share knowledge. The Bayer ForwardFarm in India will demonstrate innovative farming techniques tailored to the needs of 150~ million smallholder farmers in the country, with a particular focus on sustainable rice cultivation, thus promoting the transition towards regenerative agriculture. [link]
Consumers like the goals of regenerative agriculture, but they don’t want to pay more for food produced with the climate-friendly practices, said a Purdue University survey released this past week. Seven out of ten consumers taking part in the poll said they supported regenerative agriculture — once it was explained to them — but fewer than half said they would pay an additional 50¢ for a bag of snacks produced using regenerative practices. Most of the 1,200 consumers in the survey said they were not familiar or only slightly familiar with regenerative agriculture. [link]
In a recently published report, BASF has shared the first results from its multi-year Global Carbon Field Trials. The results demonstrate that a reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of up to 30% in agriculture is possible compared to standard farming practices, when tailoring climate-smart approaches by crop and region. BASF committed to the same target reduction in 2020 to help farmers reduce their GHG emissions per ton of crop produced. [link]
The Lactalis Group announced that it will expand its yogurt business in the United States by purchasing General Mills’ US yogurt brands and facilities. The French dairy cooperative will acquire such yogurt brands as Mountain High and :Ratio from General Mills as well as brands under license like Yoplait, Go-Gurt, Oui and others. In addition, the company will add manufacturing facilities in Murfreesboro, Tenn., and Reed City, Mich. General Mills’ US yogurt business had sales of approximately $1.2 billion in fiscal 2024, according to Lactalis. The price to be received by General Mills for its US and Canadian assets is approximately $2.1 billion. [link]
In Case You Missed It…
In late-August, a new study was published in Nature Food, showcasing a scalable, cost-effective model for producing cultivated meat. See more, here.