October 19, 2024
Spotlight Stories
Spotlight 1 – Forbes expects regenerative agriculture to solve big issues in food production but wants to know who will pay for it? Read about it, here.
Spotlight 2 – Fast Company discusses how farmers and businesses are joining together to protect the world’s most precious resource: soil. Check out the story, here.
Spotlight 3 – The Columbia Missourian details how community support is a key element to scaling regenerative agriculture. Check it out, here.
Industry Updates
The Soil Association Exchange has partnered with Lloyds Bank to support agricultural farmers, drive sustainable farming & combat soil degradation. Through this partnership, farmers will be offered a direct plan on how they can expand their sustainability efforts, support biodiversity, reduce carbon emissions and improve soil health. Farmers will be given guidance on how they can advance their sustainability plans. They will also be able to cooperate with experts to link them to new avenues that will help fund the move to sustainable farming and receive an action plan based on support from corporate partners in the supply chain. [link]
The Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development announced the department is offering a competitive grant program to promote the sustainability of land-based industries and support infrastructure benefiting rural communities in Michigan. The grants are funded by the Nonferrous Metallic Minerals Extraction Severance Tax and are available for projects addressing expansion and sustainability of land-based industries like food and agriculture, forestry, mining, oil and gas production, and tourism. Money will be allocated to practices like worker training related to land-based industries or energy, transportation, housing, communications, water, and wastewater infrastructure to benefit rural communities and micropolitan statistical areas. [link]
Tesco has unveiled the nationwide launch of a regeneratively farmed milk product in the UK. Trewithen Dairy's new product, Regen Milk, showcases its dedication to sustainable and regenerative farming practices. Farmers involved in producing Regen Milk receive an additional 5p per liter compared to conventional milk, demonstrating Trewithen Dairy's dedication to supporting fair and sustainable farming. These farmers rotate their free-grazing dairy cows every five days, providing access to fresh pasture, cultivating diverse plant species, and eliminating artificial fertilizers by incorporating natural solutions like clover planting. [link]
A report by SNS Insider says that the global biofertilizers market is anticipated to grow to $7.1 billion by 2032, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 11.4% from 2024 to 2032. One of the key drivers of growth in the biofertilizers market is the world trend of promoting sustainable agriculture, whereby increasing awareness of the issues caused by chemical fertilizers motivates customers to instead choose biofertilizers given that they are natural substances that help soil to become more fertile and plants to grow. [link]
The Hershey Company has announced a five-year agreement with nine cocoa-producing cooperatives in Côte d'Ivoire. The move is part of its "Cocoa For Good" strategy, a 10-year, $500 million investment by the company to address the complex challenges facing cocoa farmers. The agreement aims to build lasting relationships with farmers that enable a more resilient supply. [link]
Regenerative agriculture pioneer Advancing Eco Agriculture (AEA) announced a global partnership with Topraq, a Turkish precision agriculture technology company. Topraq specializes in optimizing inputs such as water, energy, and fertilizers using sensor data to enhance farm profitability across Turkey and surrounding regions. The partnership, which includes an investment from Topraq in AEA, will strengthen both companies' offerings to growers seeking to adopt regenerative practices for their citrus, grape, cotton and other high value crops. Notably, the partnership will bring increased access to regenerative agricultural solutions for growers in southeast Europe and west and central Asia, a crucial area in the global food supply and a region in which Topraq works extensively. [link]
Mars Inc. has announced collaborations to provide financial incentives to farmers as they implement regenerative agriculture practices in North America. These partnerships aim to encourage wheat, corn and rice farmers in select regions to implement regenerative agriculture practices, contributing to Scope 3 carbon reductions as part of the Mars Net Zero Roadmap. Multi-year partnerships have begun with partners and suppliers including ADM, The Andersons Inc., Riceland Foods, and Soil and Water Outcomes Fund, led by Royal Canin USA and Mars Petcare US Inc. Key agricultural regions covered are in Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Michigan and Ontario. Farmers will be supported as they implement cover crops, reduced tillage and extended crop rotations, with an aim to deliver benefits such as increased yields, lower greenhouse gas emissions through reduction and carbon sequestration, improved water quality, enhanced soil health, and greater biodiversity in the implementation regions. [link]
BASF is expanding its BioSolutions offering through a partnership with Acadian Plant Health, a renowned marine plant harvesting, cultivation, and extraction company based in Dartmouth, Canada. BASF will leverage Acadian's seaweed biostimulant technology to complement its biological portfolio and expand the availability of products in new markets while increasing solutions that grow more sustainable crops. Biostimulants are substances or microorganisms that, when applied to plants or the surrounding soil, have the ability to enhance crop growth, improve stress tolerance, and maintain marketable yield. [link]
Foodservice specialist Sysco and meat processor ABP have launched a five-year collaborative sustainable farming project with the aim of pioneering regenerative farming methods in Tipperary, Ireland. Throughout the duration of the project, Tipperary farmers will learn from industry experts and apply regenerative farming practices and works to improve soil and water quality, biodiversity, animal health and crop diversity. The ‘Regen beef’ initiative aims to share the learnings of the project with the wider farming industry. [link]
A new Deloitte survey says that 79% of agrifood executives report revenue growth from their sustainability investments. Additionally, 74% said that they achieved at least 2% cost reductions through sustainability investments. Nearly all of the 350 food and agriculture executives surveyed by Deloitte and NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business (CSB) acknowledged the financial value of sustainability investments, with 60% of executives expecting the value from sustainability strategies to increase over the next two years. [link]
In Case You Missed It…
In late September, a new study said that 75% of farmers are already being impacted by climate change or worried about its impacts. See more, here.