PepsiCo and Walmart Help Farmers Improve Soil Health and Water Quality Sustainably

PepsiCo and Walmart recently announced a 7-year partnership to seek USD120m in investments aimed at assisting U.S. and Canadian farmers in their efforts to improve the soil health and the water quality.

By establishing and scaling financial, agronomic and social programs, it aims to enable and accelerate the adoption of regenerative agriculture practices on more than 809,371 hectares of farmland and deliver approximately 4m metric tons of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions and removals by 2030 – roughly equivalent to the amount of electricity needed to power 778,300 homes for one year.

“From my perspective, embracing regenerative agriculture is essential. It's good for farmers, not only because it's beneficial to the environment and our food quality, but also for the profitability of our businesses. If you use less fertilizer and you grow a bigger crop, or if you use less water and can still grow the same size of the crop, it strengthens your farm in a way that benefits the bottom line and our environment for generations to come,” Jeff Huffman, Owner & Operator of Island Farms LLC in Maxwell, Neb., commented on the voluntary adoption of regenerative agriculture practices.

Farmers provide the raw materials needed to manufacture the goods that PepsiCo and Walmart's customers eat daily. Sustainability will vary from commodity to commodity, region to region, and even farm to farm due to the two corporations' extensive North American supply chains that contain numerous essential commodities like potatoes, among others.

The partnership between PepsiCo and Walmart offers a flexible, voluntary approach to regenerative agriculture that acknowledges the variability of agriculture and the fact that there is no one-size-fits-all solution.

“Successful sustainability starts and ends with trust. At PepsiCo, we work very hard to earn the trust of the farmer so they understand that we are investing in their legacy and they can hand their farm down to the next generation. Farmers know their business better than anyone else, and what we hear from them is that for regenerative agriculture to make business sense, three things need to happen. They need economic support, social and cultural support, and agronomic support. This strategic collaboration with Walmart will advance our shared goal to have farmers' backs as they transform farming in a way that benefits the planet and people,” Jim Andrew, Chief Sustainability Officer, PepsiCo, said.

Jane Ewing, Walmart's senior vice president for sustainability, claims that the company's sustainability strategy is designed to enable customers to make sustainable decisions on an everyday basis.

“This collaboration with PepsiCo is a great example of how we are prioritizing the expansion of regenerative agricultural practices among farmers across North America so that we can continue to make quality products affordable and accessible for customers. This collaboration aims to help elevate farmer livelihoods, engage them on how to more sustainably manage soil health, increase yields, and create a model that others can mimic across other product categories, including encouraging additional investments in regenerative agriculture by other brands,” Ewing mentioned.

PepsiCo and Walmart share a commitment to enhancing soil and water quality, promoting farming communities, and reducing carbon emissions. A resilient food system is crucial to PepsiCo's business and its ability to achieve its ambitious pep+ (PepsiCo Positive) goals, which include driving the adoption of regenerative agriculture practices across 2.83m hectares acres by 2030 - an area roughly the size of PepsiCo's agricultural footprint - and reducing absolute GHG emissions by more than 40% across its entire value chain by 2030 (against a baseline of 2015 emissions levels).

“This effort is a new model for PepsiCo, marking our first, large-scale strategic collaboration focused on sustainable agriculture with a retail partner. Farmers are critical to our business, and many of the brands our consumers know and love rely on ingredients that we source straight from the farm. By joining forces with Walmart, we'll be empowering farmers through education, upfront investment in outcomes, peer coaching, and cost-sharing – and hopefully inspiring others to join us,” Steven Williams, Chief Executive Officer, PepsiCo Foods North America, declared.

This partnership is a prime example of how Walmart, along with the Walmart Foundation, is prioritizing purposeful collaborations to speed up the adoption of regenerative practices in line with its goal to protect, restore, or manage 2.58m square kilometers of ocean and 20.2m hectares of land more sustainably by the year 2030.