Regenerative Ag: Farmers Need Brand Partners

The Business of Food

by Jennifer Barney

Regenerative Ag: Farmers Need Brand Partners
4-min read

Regenerative has quickly become a buzz word. But it's costly and risky for farmers. The promise is greenhouse gas reduction through carbon capture in the soil, but outcomes are unproven at current. Nevertheless, consumers want it. And brands can sell it. 
 
Regenerative agriculture refers to practices intended to improve soil conditions while also increasing yield. These claims are pushing the food industry to ask agriculture to make changes, as there is growing consumer awareness and interest in the claim. A 2020 IFIC survey found 36% of Americans are familiar with the term regenerative agriculture, up from 22% the year before, and 57% are interested in learning more. 
 
But farmers don’t change a process simply because of consumer trends.
 
I sat down with Cannon Michael, President/CEO of Bowles Farming and 6th generation family farmer in California to better understand the farmer perspective on regenerative practices. 
 
Bowles is a diversified California operation that farms 11K acres of cotton, wheat, tomatoes, melons, almonds, pistachios, onions and more. Through Cannon’s leadership the farm has implemented sustainable practices and is actively testing others that fall under the definition of regenerative. He engages in regenerative in two ways: through academic research projects and through brand partnerships. 
 
Testing regenerative practices with researchers
Partnering with an institution allows a farm to explore on a small scale the feasibility of a new process. For example cover cropping is widely touted as a practice for regenerative Midwestern wheat farmers. But in California with our type of soil and different crops it's not always a sure thing. At Bowles Farm, in collaboration with researchers from UC Davis, they tried a multi-species cover crop on cotton and the cover crop entirely took over the cash crop.

Testing new processes and practices, especially in California, is critical. California farmers don’t have the same access to aid and subsidy programs that other areas of the country have, so if something goes wrong in adopting a new practice, there is no safety net. In addition to loss risk, there is the cost of investment. To continue the example, cover crops are expensive: you have to buy the seed, do the planting activities, and then terminate the cover crop as opposed to simply turning over the soil and adding amendments.

Show me the data
Cannon wants carbon sequestration to be based on hard data. “There needs to be a collaboration and commitment [by a third party] over multiple years that shows you’re getting the yields”, says Cannon, “as well as the results.” Hard data is what will make the claims about carbon capture credible. “Some studies say it’s building organic matter in the top level [of soil] but other data says maybe it’s depleting the carbon down below”, referring to the practice of cover cropping in California. “A lot of the info is coming off small areas or monocultures which have different climates than California.” 

While Cannon agrees consumers want high quality, sustainable food, what will convince farmers to adopt these practices are brands that will pay and enter into long-term agreements. Participating brands can help farmers adopt regenerative practices by offsetting the costs and building a data set.
 
Brands market to consumers - farmers don’t
Brands have to tell the regenerative story and target consumers who will pay for it. Bowles has direct brand partners for regenerative cotton and wheat. Grower owned Shepherd’s Grain landed a wheat contract with manufacturer ADM but ADM failed to market it, so they broke contract and went with competitor Grain Craft who has brands ready to launch regeneratively sourced products.
 
Patagonia Provisions - the food division of Patagonia- is reaching consumers with regenerative messaging. Other brand activations are General Mills’ mac ‘n cheese brand Annie’s which invested in the conversion of 34K acres of conventional farmland to organic and regenerative and contracted for 10K acres of wheat. 
 
While there is interest for crops like wheat, Cannon says there hasn’t been much interest for some of his other crops such as melons, tomatoes, carrots, and onions. It’s going to take creativity to bring the industry along throughout the supply chain because, for one, it’s hard to brand a melon. 
 
Wider adoption?
So far the acreage is pretty small potatoes. The question remains, what will it take for a critical mass of farm land to convert to regenerative practices given the challenges presented? Cannon believes that modeling the business opportunity through actual dollars-per-ton premiums over market prices will get farmer’s attention. “Word gets out quickly in the farming community and we all want to know what everybody else is doing. If there’s a model that makes more money and you can show that, you’d see wider adoption more quickly.”
 
Brands promising the future
Brands have to connect all the way back to the farm in order to make a regenerative claim. It’s about traceability AND verification. This due diligence is a lot to put on brands. Together General Mills, Cargill and PepsiCo have committed to advancing regenerative on 18 million acres in the U.S. by 2030. General Mills and Cargill are doing it by hitching to organic. Organic is a whole different set of standards. Which begs the question, does regenerative have to be married to organic? 
 
I’ll be tackling this topic next week. 
 
All my best,
Jennifer

News
NEW Food Tech startup investment program with Sente. Apply here
Are you a food and ag startup? Apply to pitch at FoodBytes 2021
PepsiCo to help potato farmers convert to regenerative on 7 million acres by 2030
Regenerative meal kit company plans to work directly with CA farmers
Paying farmers not to farm

I'd love to hear from you - get in touch at jennifer@3rdandbroadway.com