Sean Westcott is Senior Vice President of R&D for Europe at PepsiCo.
With exciting new processes, innovations and technologies, agriculture today is more precise, more productive and more sustainable than ever. The transformation has been amazing. Technology has not only helped grow more food, it has also improved its quality and at the same time helped reduce the environmental impact of producing it.
But we can go further, faster. The European Union is taking steps to make agriculture more sustainable, through the European Green Deal and the Farm-to-Table Strategy. Next week, the European Commission will present its proposal to define carbon farming, with the aim of creating a business model for producers to take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in the soil through measures such as rotation. of crops, cover crops and reduced tillage. .
We support these measures. However, to be successful, we must co-create the right regulatory framework and financial incentives to integrate technology into agriculture. We need to implement the latest agricultural techniques, including regenerative agriculture, which can help make the sector more climate neutral. In fact, regenerative agriculture practices can sequester carbon more effectively than any other measure in agriculture today.
While we work closely with our growers to test and test new farming techniques, we are also mindful of the fact that we cannot create the right environment to foster sustainable farming practices on our own. That is why we are proud members of the One Planet Business for Biodiversity coalition, where we work with pioneers in the business community to scale up regenerative agriculture and drive action to protect and restore biodiversity within value chains.
Regenerative agriculture describes a system of agricultural principles and practices that rehabilitates and improves the entire soil ecosystem. It can rebuild soil organic matter and restore degraded soil biodiversity. Essentially, regenerative agriculture combats the climate crisis by sucking carbon out of the air and burying it. It offers one of the greatest opportunities to help address human and climate health while supporting farmers. The key is that it does more than just maintain the soil – regenerative agriculture actually improves it, using technologies that revitalize the soil and the environment.
At PepsiCo, we are working to bring the latest technology to our agricultural operations, leveraging data to provide new insights into crop yields and growing food in a way that revitalizes the earth and strengthens agriculture. Healthy soil starts with a healthy data flow. Data management is becoming a cornerstone of our agricultural processes, helping us measure progress and understand where we can have the optimal impact.
Take for example our iCrop technology, which we have used with farmers for the last ten years, capturing data on 55,000 hectares of potato production in 16 markets in Europe. We currently track over a million crop data points through iCrop, providing farmers with insight into the correlation between soil type, climate, irrigation, and water use, so they can grow more with less. Thanks to iCrop, our potato growers in Spain have increased the precision of their irrigation with water from 48% to 93%.
Another program, Opti-Oat, looks at how to grow the perfect oatmeal using over a million data points to develop our Oat Growing Guide. That guide is freely available and has helped our producers optimize resources, improve yields and create a more sustainable source of oats.
These innovations are a large part of our actions to ensure that our agriculture is sustainable. And they depend on data, which helps us find green solutions, including precision agriculture. Technology is key to one of the most important sustainability measures we are implementing, regenerative agriculture.
In addition to technology, we also use some traditional agricultural techniques to improve soil health naturally, including crop rotation, which can regenerate the soil naturally. For example, we are working with Portuguese farmers to develop a new crop, peanuts, which has nitrogen-fixing properties and improves soil health naturally. These additional measures can further help the regenerative agriculture process.
We want to accelerate regenerative practices in Europe. Our Positive Farming program has three main goals for 2030: to spread the adoption of regenerative farming practices across the seven million acres of farmland we farm; 100% sustainable source of our key seasoning, apple, beet and cane sugar, and corn sweetener; and improving the livelihood communities of more than one million people in our communities and agricultural supply chains.
But if we want to accelerate regenerative practices, we need a regulatory framework and financial incentives to ensure their buy-in. To generate a healthy data flow, public policies must incentivize farmers to use digital technologies and use data sharing.
We also need more investment and research in ecological technologies and standards and to measure biodiversity and soil health. There are many new developments in agricultural technology, making it difficult for any farmer to stay up-to-date on the latest innovations. The government and buyers must help farmers see through the clutter by providing guidance and support around technologies that have a real impact.
Finally, we need a supportive policy framework that can make regenerative agricultural practices relevant and attractive to farmers. This requires a consistent approach across all major policy frameworks and financial mechanisms, such as the CAP, the Biodiversity Strategy, and the work being considered around the Carbon Farming Initiative.
As one of the world’s leading food and beverage companies, PepsiCo relies on a resilient food system. With our scale, we have the opportunity and responsibility to drive meaningful change. We can use our data resources to ensure future food needs are met while protecting and regenerating our planet. And we look forward to the EU joining us in supporting innovative regenerative practices that improve soil health, sequester carbon and reduce emissions.