Taking regenerative ag to a new level

Companies are expanding programs into international markets and striving to offer hassle-free platforms and direct payments to keep US farmers incentivized. Climate goals and sustainability metrics for success vary by company, but all see regenerative agriculture as an opportunity to sequester carbon to drive down emissions, improve water quality and support biodiversity on farms, while helping food manufacturers meet growing consumer expectations for sustainability and environmental responsibility.

The term “regenerative agriculture” debuted in organic farming literature in the early 1980s. Ideas and practices bubbled under for decades before the term resurfaced in the 2010s and companies began to initiate programs in the 2020s. While no consistent definition of regenerative agriculture has emerged, most practitioners say it is the process of restoring degraded soils using practices such as no-till planting, adaptive grazing and the elimination of or limited use of pesticides and synthetic fertilizer based on sound ecological principles.

“What’s tricky about this space is there’s not one universally agreed upon definition of regenerative agriculture, but there are common principles rooted in improving soil health,” said Ashley McKeon, director of global regenerative agriculture at Cargill, Wayzata, Minnesota, US.

“But what we think is really important in thinking about regenerative agriculture and the benefit to not having a super-rigid definition is that you can really allow farmers to start implementing practices based on where they are in their journey,” she said. “If the farmer’s been trying no-till for a while and they now want to take the next step of adding a cover crop, that’s where they are, and we can provide a payment and incentive for that practice.

“Some farmers maybe have tried things off and on, haven’t really seen it stick, and now they’re willing to give it another try. And we can provide some support by having them be able to choose what practices they want to implement and knowing that those practices provide benefits when done over time and at a bigger scale. For our row crop farmers, our corn, soy, wheat farmers, those practices around nutrient management, no-till and cover crops are the most commonly used.”

Five Principles

Improving soil health is the underlying goal behind regenerative agriculture principles cited by ADM in announcing its recent partnerships: minimizing soil disturbance; maintaining living roots in the soil; continuously covering bare soil; maximizing diversity by emphasizing crops, soil microbes and pollinators; and responsibly managing inputs such as nutrients and pesticides.

“These five principles continue to drive our work in regenerative agriculture, which we define as an outcome-based farming approach that protects and improves soil health, biodiversity, climate and water resources while supporting farming business development,” said Paul Scheetz, director of climate smart ag origination at ADM, Chicago, Illinois, US. “It’s also important to note that this process all starts with the farmer, with regenerative agriculture adaptive to both local physical conditions and cultures, ultimately supporting farmers and the environment for generations to come.”

Steady growth

Expansion of regenerative agriculture programs and partnerships has been consistent for several years, including 2024:

• In February, Bartlett, a Savage Co., and sustainability solutions provider Regrow Ag partnered on sustainability commitments using Regrow’s Agriculture Resilience Platform, which supports rigorous Scope 3 emissions analysis and the ability to create actionable carbon reduction plans and track environmental outcomes on the farm level at its new soybean crush plant in Cherryvale, Kansas, US.
• In June, Bartlett partnered with grocery retailer Ahold Delhaize USA and global snacking leader Kellanova to reduce Scope 3 GHG emissions from wheat farming across the value chain in a pilot program supporting the adoption of regenerative agricultural practices among wheat farmers in North Carolina.
• The same month, ADM teamed with Ooni Pizza Ovens, Edinburgh, Scotland, to introduce a line of flour produced from wheat cultivated using regenerative agriculture practices that can be used to bake pizza at home.
• In July, Golden Peanut, LLC, a peanut processing subsidiary of ADM, announced a collaboration with the J.M. Smucker Co. and the National Black Growers Council to support the adoption of regenerative agriculture practices across 20,000 peanut acres in the Southeast.
• In September, Ceres Global Ag Corp. unveiled an expanded regenerative agriculture partnership with Miller Milling to deliver local, scalable solutions to wheat growers in North Dakota to improve agronomic and environmental outcomes, enabling the adoption of sustainable practices that enhance nutrient use efficiency.

Producer buy-in

In 2021, Cargill debuted its RegenConnect environmental services program, which uses tools to model and measure carbon sequestered on farms and directly pays farmers per ton captured. Farmers also see reduced fuel, water and fertilizer costs over time.

“Farmers are implementing it, and companies are incentivizing it because regenerative agriculture provides stacked benefits,” McKeon said. “Carbon is certainly one of the bigger ones that got a lot of folks’ attention early on. But water is a huge one, too, and Cargill also has some pretty strong commitments around improving water quality as well as water quantity. Regenerative agriculture can really improve the way water is held and kept in the soils, which means less runoff and less need for irrigation if they’re in irrigated systems. We track and quantify those water benefits from our farms in addition to the carbon.”

Cargill’s program currently rewards farmers $35 per ton of carbon sequestered, depending on the practices they opt for.

“They pick the practices and which fields and we work with them to model what that outcome might be,” McKeon said. “They know how much their payment might be when they sign up with us and then they get paid after implementation of the practice and we can verify that it was achieved. There’s kind of that direct market incentive that payment actually is helpful to kind of ensure that they are rewarded for generating those positive environmental impacts.”

Formalizing methods

As stewards of the land, many farmers already practice regenerative agriculture methods, sometimes for a second or third generation. They see the practices as supporting their business longevity and family legacies. But formalizing agreements with ingredient suppliers offers support, data and cash.

Programs such as ADM’s re:generations let farmers “tap into data and reporting support they previously may not have had,” Scheetz said. “We deliver financial support and incentives to offset productivity and cost risks associated with adopting practices, and we work to make it an easy process for farmers — while also providing a range of options, including farming practices, commodities and/or greenhouse gas reduction.”

ADM’s re:generations surpassed its enrollment goal in 2023 with more than 2.8 million acres, and it is on track for a 2024 goal of enrolling 3.5 million acres, Scheetz said.

“Our re:generations program is also a significant aspect of our overarching Strive 35 goals, specifically supporting our goal of reducing Scope 3 emissions by 25% compared to a 2021 baseline,” Scheetz said. “In 2023, our regen ag work helped reduce our Scope 3 footprint by 310,000 tonnes of CO2e and an additional 263,700 tonnes of CO2 were modeled to be sequestered — two numbers which, combined, are equivalent to removing more than 135,000 cars from the road for a year.”

Companies also serve in a technology support capacity to farmers, he said. That includes agronomic support and digital platforms for data collection and reporting. ADM in August announced a joint venture with Farmers Business Network called Gradable, which expands a technology platform to help farmers and buyers find value from grain produced using sustainable and regenerative practices.

Soil resilience

For farmers, part of planning the future of their business meant taking note of healthy soils that allow them to seed a crop in low-moisture environments. Cargill and the nonprofit academic research organization Soil Health Institute studied farmers who had adopted soil health practices over a number of years.

“The study was very encouraging and shows that more of this is needed,” McKeon said. “After a period of three to five years where these practices were fully implemented, farmers reported, remarkably, a 97% increase in resilience on their farm in terms of being able to plant when there was severe drought or weather, water patterns, compared to neighbors who maybe weren’t implementing this.”

That data, plus figures on large savings in fuel costs, continue to attract interested producers.

“From a cost perspective, we saw an 88% increase in net income for soybean farmers, an 85% increase in net income for corn farmers, and a lot of that did come from reduced fuel use,” McKeon said. “When you’re not tilling, you’re not going to run the tractor as much. It reduces input costs because, over time and with improved soil health, farmers need less crop protection potentially as weed pressures are minimized, as they look at no-till in other things requiring less fertilizer. More data to show that, over the long run, these things can provide a return to the farmer I think will be helpful to getting more adoption.”

Consumer push

Companies with vested interests in regenerative agriculture are monitoring consumer expectations and emphasis on sustainability and environmentally friendly practices. ADM’s research found that more than 70% of US consumers expect companies to source ingredients and products sustainably, and more than 65% say they are more likely to purchase products that are sustainably sourced.

The same study indicated that when US consumers were provided with a definition of regenerative agriculture, most agreed that they would be more likely to trust (73%) and purchase (72%) brands that implement regenerative agriculture programs.

“This ongoing interest from consumers points to a clear opportunity for consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands and retailers to take action, and this is where our regenerative agriculture program can help,” Scheetz said. “By working with both farmers and downstream customers, we connect the entire value chain and assist brands in not only using ingredients and solutions in their products grown from regenerative agriculture practices, but also better tell the sustainability story to consumers and help them connect with their food purchases.”

McKeon also noted the value of regenerative agriculture across the supply chain.

“Cargill connects with a lot of downstream companies, the CPGs and retailers and others who also have a lot of the same goals around climate and around regenerative agriculture,” McKeon said. “We can take that same carbon benefit that farmers in our program have been able to generate — carbon reduction — and Cargill can count those benefits toward our own climate goals and then the way the rules are set up. Customers who are further down the value chain from us can also count those toward their goals, so there’s an incentive for them to work with us to make those payments to farmers so that we all can kind of see the benefit of that environmental impact.”

Scaling-up period

Ingredient suppliers say the current focus is on successfully scaling up their regenerative agriculture programs.

“The new programs — the flashy programs, a lot of those programs from Cargill, from competitors, from the government — have been out there now for a year or two,” McKeon said. “There is a lot of money going to farmers for regen ag, climate-smart agriculture from a variety of sources.

“On the one hand, what we’re seeing with that is that farmers are way more interested. It’s not just Cargill talking to them. They’ve probably heard from three or four people, their agronomist, they’ve heard from other buyers, they heard from their neighbor. For us, that’s beneficial because we don’t have to spend time explaining to a farmer what this is. We can come in and say, ‘Hey you’ve heard about this, here’s a program that can really work well for you.’

“We’re really focused now on scaling and getting past the million-acre mark. How do we get more continuous improvement from farmers in our program? So I think you’re going to see that with a lot of companies saying, ‘We’re finding a model that works, we’re getting great feedback from farmers, and now we really want to take it big.’”

For example, Cargill has a goal to get 10 million acres in regenerative agriculture by 2030, McKeon said.

“We’ve got confidence that, over the next six years or so, we’ll get to that goal,” she said. “Adoption can be kind of slow. So it’s exciting that the things that we’ve set in motion, we’re starting to see it take off. The big news is that companies aren’t walking away from this.”