Weak plans, unquantifiable targets and a lack of support for farmers bring promises of sustainable food production into question. But there is hope. By David Burrows.
Food company sustainability reports and net-zero plans are littered with the term ‘regenerative agriculture’ but formal targets are few and far between, according to new research.
Fairr, a network supported by investors with over $70trn (£56trn) in combined assets, assessed 79 agri-food companies. Fifty of them publicly refer to the potential of regenerative agriculture as a solution to the climate and biodiversity crises; however, 32 of those, including foodservice behemoths like Starbucks and Domino’s, have not put in place any formal quantitative company-wide targets to achieve those ambitions.
Fairr said the findings were “deeply concerning”. “The lack of formal targets points to a disconnect between company ambition and implementation of regenerative agriculture practices,” the authors of the report wrote.
Just 18 companies – including Compass, McDonald’s, Sodexo and Yum Brands – had set quantifiable targets. However, even for those with relatively comprehensive targets in place it is “difficult” to understand how they will be met.
McDonald’s, for example, has removed information relating to regenerative agriculture from its responsible sourcing page, which is an example of ‘greenhushing’, according to the research.
Compass, meanwhile, has committed to sourcing 70% of its top five food categories through regenerative agriculture. The commitment is discussed in a Footprint report on regenerative agriculture, published later this month, but Fairr said there is currently limited disclosure beyond this statement.
“For Compass, we noticed that the company doesn’t make it clear from its disclosure whether anything is actually happening as the wording is the same year on year,” Max Boucher, Fairr senior R&E manager, told Footprint. “On the positive side we do also point out that their involvement with the Soil Association [Exchange] is one of very few instances we’ve seen of companies providing financial incentives for farmers to deliver environmental benefits.”
Only four of the 50 companies assessed by Fairr have dedicated any funding to de-risking the transition through some sort of financial support for farmers. Nestlé has committed CHF 1.2bn (£1.1bn) by 2025 to support the adoption of regenerative agriculture across its supply chain, while JBS and PepsiCo will spend $100m (£81m) and at least $216m (£174m) respectively by 2030 to transform their supply chains. At Sodexo, 15% of the budget at its Good Eating Company subsidiary is committed to sourcing from farms with regenerative agriculture practices by 2025.
The 21 agri-food companies seeking to improve farmer livelihoods as an ‘outcome’ are focused on the need to improve income through yields, additional crops, income diversification and reducing costs through use of fewer agrochemical inputs. Whether this is enough is debatable: most farmers are fearful of likely drops in yield in the first year or more of production under regenerative systems.
“Without adequate support for farmers, there can be no successful regenerative agriculture,” said Jo Raven, Fairr director of thematic research and corporate innovation. “Investors will want to see concrete action being taken to enable a just transition and ensure farmers do not bear the burden of change.”
In Fairr’s analysis social outcomes related to farmer incomes, just transition and other economic themes (often referred to as livelihood in corporate disclosures) were the least cited of the six ‘outcomes’. Soil health and carbon-related outcomes were the two most cited, followed by ‘improving water use and quality’, ‘biodiversity’ and ‘reduced use of agrochemicals’.
Earlier this month, some of the biodiversity risks that regenerative agriculture is designed to mitigate – including nutrient pollution, loss of pollinators and poor soil health – were named as key risks food companies should report against in the new, finalised Taskforce on Nature-related Finance Disclosures (TNFD) framework. Companies must be able to substantiate how they manage nature-related risks and opportunities, as well as their impacts on nature.
“From soybeans to fish food, the agri-food sector is a significant driver of biodiversity loss and greenhouse gas emissions as it turns commodities into the food on our plates,” said Fairr chair and founder Jeremy Coller. “It’s encouraging that two-thirds of the sector now report ‘regenerative agriculture’ as a way to mitigate this damage, but deeply concerning that only one third of these companies have implemented formal targets to institutionalise the take up of regenerative practices in their supply chain.”
Fairr’s report highlights several positive examples of regenerative commitments. For example, Danone has committed to sourcing 30% of key ingredients from farms transitioning to regenerative agriculture by 2025; General Mills will implement regenerative agriculture practices on 1 million acres of farmland by 2030; and Walmart, through a collaboration with PepsiCo, has set a target to eliminate 4 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions through its regenerative agriculture programme.
Walmart and PepsiCo have actually tried to quantify regenerative agriculture’s contribution to their climate targets. Not many companies do this, Boucher explained, but the report also highlights the issues with allocating the carbon sequestration benefits between the companies and any other party involved, which means there is a risk of double or even tripling counting the savings.
Some companies have already begun to make ‘regenerative’ claims in their marketing and communications. McCain Foods is marketing its work on regeneratively-grown potatoes, for example, while Marks-and-Spencer is using flour sourced through Wildfarmed, which has developed regenerative standards for wheat production that promise no pesticides, increased biodiversity, higher farmer welfare and carbon negativity.
At the regenerative agriculture and food systems summit in Amsterdam in September companies privately (and in some cases publicly) revealed their anxieties about how to present their initiatives and any new products given current scrutiny of green claims. They were also conscious of moving too quickly for consumers.
A report published by Demos and McCain Foods recently showed 70% of people are not yet familiar with the term regenerative farming, but a similar number of consumers are in favour of its widespread adoption.
With no internationally agreed definition of ‘regenerative agriculture’ considerable variation occurs in how companies describe its benefits, said Fairr. This lack of a clear definition makes regenerative agriculture claims “hard to substantiate, creating significant risk in terms of incoming regulation and changing reporting frameworks”.
Footprint understands the Advertising Standards Authority isn’t yet looking at ‘regenerative’ products specifically as it scrutinises green claims more closely. But they will be part of the ASA’s climate change and environment project next year.
“We’ve seen great initiatives but until clear standards and frameworks are defined best practices probably are an amalgamation of various initiatives,” said Boucher. He pointed to Danone’s clear regenerative tiers for suppliers which sets clear goals against various outcomes, for example. Compass’s collaboration with the Soil Association Exchange “opens the door” to farmers being rewarded financially for the positive environmental impacts they deliver, he added. “These are just two examples but the industry can collaborate and inspire itself from peers to work towards best practice.”
