Becomes a Global Priority
By Renee Targos, Editor, AgriBusiness Global
Big players in the food industry turned their focus to regenerative agriculture practices during the pandemic in hopes it could help minimize farming’s impact on global climate change and increase food production.
Starting in 2020, multinational companies announced big commitments and investments in regenerative agriculture to reduce carbon emissions, decrease water consumption, and improve soil health globally.
In 2021, PepsiCo shared its plan to introduce regenerative agriculture across the 7 million acres of land used for growing the company’s crops, to reduce 3 million tons of carbon emissions by 2030. That same year, Nestle announced its $1.3 billion investment to help its farmers and suppliers transition to regenerative agriculture practices.
Starbucks announced its Planet Positive plan for sourcing coffee and tea, that includes water conservation and soil health. In 2021, Starbucks contracted with 1,200 eco-mills in Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Kenya, and Rwanda, for reducing 80% of water use in coffee processing and gathered 11,500 soil and foliar samples for soil health research.
This year, General Mills partnered with ALUS, a Canadian charitable organization that supports farmers, and announced a $2.3 million investment for farmers to use regenerative agriculture in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Canada.
The interest in this farming method goes far beyond large multinationals. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) advocates for it. The U.S. based National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) submitted a policy recommendation for the United States 2023 Farm Bill in its Regenerative Agriculture: Farm Policy for the 21st Century asking the U.S. government to offer greater support to farmers and ranchers using regenerative farming methods. The NRDC interviewed 100 farmers and ranchers from 47 states to learn about barriers and opportunities for the adoption of regenerative agriculture practices and found the U.S. government overwhelmingly financially supports industrial agriculture practices over regenerative.
Regenerative Agriculture Defined While the definition of regenerative agriculture varies depending on sources, it can be differentiated from organic farming. Organic farming is defined by growing food without using synthetic fertilizers or pesticides and is regulated by the National Organic Program (NOP), under the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). In the European Union, organic food is regulated under the European Commission.
Regenerative agriculture is not regulated and uses farming methods that work for the region or farm, with a goal to reduce carbon emissions and water use and improve soil health. Organic products can be used with regenerative agriculture as they may in some cases be less damaging to the soil, but Marco Toapanta, Managing Partner & CEO for AgriNova LLC, says studies to understand soil health are relatively new and only a few of them address the potential benefits of these products in soil diversity and soil health to the extent of having an impact on crop production and sustainability.
Lance Gunderson, President and Owner of Regen Ag Lab, LLC, says, “[Practicing regenerative agriculture by simply moving to biological products], in my opinion, is like saying I used to buy these Band-Aids to cover my cuts, and now I'm switching brands. You're still not healing the wound. You're just covering it with something different. Biological products can be part of the system, but we still need a systems approach rather than a product-based approach.”
In his definition, Gunderson says regenerative agriculture is “moving away from the conventional paradigm of large-scale agriculture to a holistic management framework that regenerates the soil and improves productivity.”
Gunderson doesn’t include methods like rotating crops, adding plant coverings, or avoiding synthetic pesticides or fertilizers to his definition of regenerative agriculture, because, “When you start adding prescriptions to a definition, that's when everyone says: ‘Well, that doesn't work here.’”
Adrian Ferrero, Co-Founder and CEO of Biome Makers, adds that regenerative agriculture should also be defined as practices to “help restore the ecological balance in the field for lowering the hazardous and risk of certain problems that might happen.”
All About the Soil With its statement in July that 90% of the earth’s topsoil will be at risk by 2050, FAO is encouraging countries to sign up for its Global Soil Partnership and pushing regenerative agricultural practices, such as cover crops, crop rotation, and tree planting to preserve topsoil. While not included in FAO’s recommendations, the reduction of synthetic agrochemicals is also a common practice in regenerative agriculture.
The Center for Biological Diversity conducted a peer-reviewed study analyzing 394 studies of 275 unique species or types of soil organisms and 284 pesticides or pesticide mixtures. The study showed the use of synthetic pesticides in U.S. agriculture was detrimental to healthy soil by killing invertebrates like earthworms, ants, beetles, and ground-nesting bees. These invertebrates are key for creating healthy soil by taking carbon from plants and decaying matter and stabilizing it in soil.
However, with the need to produce high-yields, growers cannot afford to give up all use of agrochemicals. Studies done by BioOne, Purdue University, and the Weed Society of America, are finding that healthy soil can co-exist with decreased agrochemicals loads.
Juan Jose Chavez Mulet, Corporate Project Manager-Advanced Analytical Services for DISAGRO says several studies have shown that more glyphosate is needed to kill weeds in sterilized soil and sometimes not affective at all. This is not the same for soil with microbiome. Studies show that less glyphosate is needed to kill weeds in healthy soil. Studies also show that using less agrochemicals can allow a plant to activate its own protection systems to defend itself, he says.
“We are going to learn how to use agrochemicals to maintain high productivity without altering the relationship between the microorganisms and the crop,” Chavez Mulet says. “We need to discover how to use agrochemicals in combination with the biological products for sustainable production that benefits the grower and all actors in the food chain. It’s not a war between chemicals and biologicals. The purpose is to extract the better of both sides and discover a mix of using it in an effective combination.”
Gunderson agrees.
“We don't need to say we’re not going to use any technologies, any synthetic products, ever. I don't think we have to do that to truly be regenerative,” Gunderson says.
“I think growers got in the habit of thinking if some chemical is good, more is better. We made technologies relatively cheap, effective, and easy to get, but it also creates a whole different set of problems. If we're going to apply fungicides four times a year, that becomes a chronic stress and causes problems from overuse.”
Ferrero connects the problem of overuse to fertilizers as well. “The way we are using crop inputs is not ideal. If we think about the efficiency of fertilizer application, for every pound of a fertilizer that we throw into the soil, only 30% will get it into the plant.”
Food production companies like Fyffes are making changes to reduce the chemical load and fertilizer use in their Costa Rican banana plantations. Hugo Hays, Global Director of Food Safety and Compliance for Fyffes, says, “Our sustainability strategy is based around reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, a reduction of water use, and a reduction or more-efficient use of inputs such as agrochemical or chemical load.”
Focusing on Black Sigatoka, a banana leaf fungus disease requiring the bulk of agrochemicals used in bananas, Fyffes trialed a technological package for disease monitoring, prevention, and control, using both conventional agrochemicals and biological methods such as microbe and plant extract-based inputs. Fyffes is also working on reducing soil erosion using under-canopy ground cover and improved fertilizer uptake.
“Our biggest investment as farmers is our land and soil,” Hays says. “That soil has for many years been treated as a kind of a substrate in which to place your plant and add fertilizers and other external inputs to grow the plants. But more recently, we’ve been paying more attention to nurturing the right microbiome balance in the soil, and how this affects the banana plant’s productivity and natural pest and disease defense mechanisms.”
Crop Protection Industry Shifts As more international food companies promote regenerative agriculture and consumers continue to rally for lower use of synthetic chemicals, Ferrero sees changes in the synthetic crop input manufacturers. He says the crop protection industry is dividing into two camps.
“There are those manufacturers who are really taking a serious approach of how they can contribute to this new way of doing agriculture with solutions and offering alternative inputs that they've been selling,” Ferrero says.
This is evident in manufacturers like Pacific Spot Limited and several others in India that are focusing on biostimulants and biocontrols, and the larger multinationals merging with biological companies, for example, Syngenta acquiring the Italian biological company, Valagro, and AMVAC acquiring Agrinos. But not all synthetic crop protection companies are making the change.
“Then we see this other group of input manufacturers who are waiting,” Ferrero says. “They are still using traditional methods and not adopting what the market and science suggests will be the future of agriculture.”
Future Forward with Ag Tech Ag tech is essential for growers to be successful using regenerative agriculture methods. A key to improving soil is information. Companies like Starbucks are providing technology to growers for analyzing soil and giving growers real-time information to plan and pivot with short- and long-term changes in weather, soil, and crops.
“Growers will need new ways of farming and will need more information to understand what to do in response to variables,” Chavez Mulet says. “The farmer will need to better understand what the weather is going to be like; the functionality of their soil; the relationship between those microorganisms and the crop; and how to induce a systemic resistance in those crops. The information farmers need is very specific to conditions.”
Hays says his company is using ag tech to help monitor, learn, and study the banana plants on the Costa Rican plantation.
“It's a fascinating journey full of uncertainties and variables that we can't control, so we need to monitor the plants and do a lot of testing,” Hays says. “For integrated pest management, it means monitoring the plant, modifying your regime, and changing. We use a monitoring system using infrared, near infrared, and visible light with drones and satellites, which is helping us to understand the day-to-day in the plantation, at least at a macro level. We also build a more multi-dimensional field picture by testing and plotting carbon content of soils, identifying soil microbial population DNA biodiversity, and observing its interaction. Getting this information is going to be more and more important.”
As more ag tech is developed, more information can be shared and analyzed to troubleshoot and find solutions.
“There is a new wave of young growers coming in,” Toapanta says. “They are adopting new technologies with data on how to take care of the soil. This change is coming up, and it's coming up fast. Companies that are providing a detailed analysis, including metagenomics and microbiomes, are helping us understand these benefits.”
