ADM, a global leader in sustainable agriculture supply chains, is advancing its commitment to fostering sustainable farming practices and enhancing community resilience through a strategic partnership with Swayam Shikshan Prayog (SSP), a non-governmental organisation dedicated to empowering women in low-income, climate-threatened communities. The core of this collaboration is SSP’s innovative Women-led Climate Resilient Farming (WCRF) model—an empowering force that enables women to act as influential change agents, driving the adoption of food-secure practices on their farms.
Funded by ADM, the project kicked off last December and is scheduled to run for a year, supporting some 1,500 women farmers across 30 villages in Maharashtra district. In the face of climate change in India, where erratic weather conditions have wiped out crops across an area of 9.4 million hectares in Maharashtra1, small farmers in the region, especially women, face struggles, including crop failures and limited resources. Yet even among adversity, women’s roles in agriculture remain crucial and transformative.
“While the WCRF model is centred on Marathwada in the Indian state of Maharashtra, we recognise the broader challenges across India and have incorporated our philosophy and practises into various corporate social responsibility programmes since 2019,” said Amrendra Mishra, Country Manager of India and Managing Director of Oilseeds at ADM. “Recognising the profound impact of climate change on the livelihoods of small and marginal farming households in the region, ADM is committed to driving positive change and resilience. Through comprehensive training and the promotion of economic and social resilience, we aspire to contribute to the enduring sustainability of women and their households. Our efforts focus on improving productivity, increasing income, enhancing family health and nutrition, and building resilience for a more robust and secure agrarian community.”
Through the WCRF model, ADM aims to equip women farmers with the necessary tools and knowledge for climate-resilient farming practices. The project not only addresses environmental concerns but also empowers communities from within, paving the way toward a sustainable and food-secure future for all involved. The WCRF model centers around four key components: empowerment, food security,
livelihoods, and natural resources.
To implement this model effectively, SSP has established a supportive network that involves collaboration with the government, agro-tech partners, training partners, and knowledge and resource partners. On the ground, Krishi Samvad Sahayak (KSS), an agriculture conversation facilitator, plays a pivotal role, serving as a bridge between the model’s network and women farmers by disseminating the model, ensuring constant communication, and providing support for the women farmers involved.
“SSP has been working closely with ADM for the past two years, and together we have embarked on meaningful initiatives that brought positive results,” said Mr. Upmanyu Patil, Director of Programs at SSP. “In our first year, we built 100 farm ponds in Dharashiv District and developed water conservation plans for 100 villages. In the current year, we are dedicated to promoting climate-smart agriculture reaching out to 30 villages and 1,500 farmers in the Marathwada region. Leveraging ADM’s ability to implement and scale as an industry leader, we believe that the potential for collaboration is vast. Collectively, we can support market linkages, ensure access to government schemes, and advance water-efficient irrigation practices and crops, supporting and empowering local female farmers to become change- makers in agriculture.”
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PepsiCo, Inc. introduced pep+ (pep Positive), a strategic end-to-end transformation with sustainability at the center of how the company will create growth and value by operating within planetary boundaries and inspiring positive change for the planet and people. pep+ will guide how PepsiCo will transform its business operations: from sourcing ingredients and making and selling its products in a more sustainable way, to leveraging its more than one billion connections with consumers each day to take sustainability mainstream and engage people to make choices that are better for themselves and the planet.
Ramon Laguarta (Photo: Amanda Taraska)
“pep+ is the future of our company – a fundamental transformation of what we do and how we do it to create growth and shared value with sustainability and human capital at the center. It reflects a new business reality, where consumers are becoming more interested in the future of the planet and society,” said Ramon Laguarta, PepsiCo’s Chairman and CEO. “pep+ will change our brands and how they win in the market. For example, imagine Lay’s will start with a potato grown sustainably on a regenerative field, and then be cooked and delivered from a Net-Zero and Net Water Positive supply chain, sold in a bio-compostable bag, with the lowest sodium levels in the market. That’s a positive choice. That’s the best tasting, #1 potato chip of the future. That’s how pep+ will be better for people, for the planet, and for our business. Now, imagine the scale and impact when applied to all 23 of our billion-dollar brands.”
pep+ drives action and progress across three key pillars, bringing together a number of industry-leading 2030 goals under a comprehensive framework:
Positive Agriculture: PepsiCo is working to spread regenerative practices to restore the Earth across land equal to the company’s entire agricultural footprint (approximately 7 million acres), sustainably source key crops and ingredients, and improve the livelihoods of more than 250,000 people in its agricultural supply chain.
Positive Value Chain: PepsiCo will help build a circular and inclusive value chain through actions to:
Achieve Net-Zero emissions by 2040;
Become Net Water Positive by 2030; and
Introduce more sustainable packaging into the value chain.
PepsiCo announced new goals to cut virgin plastic per serving by 50 % across its global food & beverage portfolio by 20301, using 50 % recycled content in its plastic packaging and scaling the SodaStream business globally, an innovative platform that almost entirely eliminates the need for beverage packaging, among other levers.
The company will also progress its more than $570 million diversity, equity and inclusion journey; and
introduced a new global workforce volunteering program, One Smile at a Time, to encourage, support and empower each one of its 291,000 employees to make positive impacts in their local communities.
Positive Choices: PepsiCo continues to evolve its portfolio of food & beverage products so that they are better for the planet and people, including by:
Incorporating more diverse ingredients in both new and existing food products that are better for the planet and/or deliver nutritional benefits, prioritizing chickpeas, plant-based proteins and whole grains;
Expanding its position in the nuts & seeds category, where PepsiCo is already the global branded leader, including leadership positions in Mexico, China and several Western European markets;
Accelerating its reduction of added sugars and sodium through the use of science-based targets across its portfolio and cooking its food offerings with healthier oils; and
Continuing to scale new business models that require little or no single-use packaging, including its global SodaStream business – an icon of a Positive Choice and the largest sparkling water brand in the world by volume. SodaStream, already sold in more than 40 countries, is bringing PepsiCo flavor options like Pepsi Zero Sugar, Lipton and bubly to 23 markets, and its new SodaStream Professional platform will expand into functional beverages and reach more than 10 additional markets by the end of 2022, part of the brand’s effort to help consumers avoid more than 200 billion plastic bottles by 2030.
“pep+ directly links the future of our business with the future of our planet, for the benefit of both – from how we source ingredients and make and sell our products; to how we inspire consumers through our iconic brands to make better choices for themselves and the planet; to how we support communities and improve livelihoods throughout our supply chain,” said Jim Andrew, Chief Sustainability Officer, PepsiCo. “Take SodaStream, for example. By rapidly expanding the SodaStream ecosystem, we are meeting the needs of consumers at home, away from home, and on-the-go. At the same time, we are also offering consumers positive choices that use less plastic, create fewer emissions, and are better for people. pep+ is our roadmap to create the food and drinks people love in a way that helps build the sustainable future we all must have.”
The company’s brands across its food & beverage portfolio are accelerating their efforts to realize PepsiCo’s sustainable packaging vision and leveraging their influence to educate consumers on recycling and the planetary impacts of their choices.
11 European markets are moving key Pepsi-branded2 products to 100 % rPET bottles by 2022. PepsiCo estimates that shifting to a 100 % rPET bottle will lower GHG emissions by approximately 30 % per bottle.
In the U.S., all Pepsi-branded products will be converted to 100 % rPET bottles by 2030, with Pepsi Zero Sugar beginning to be sold in 100 % rPET bottles by 2022. The brand is celebrating this important move to sustainable packaging with a new consumer-centric platform leveraging fall football and driving recycling awareness, education and advocacy, which are critical because rPET availability depends on consumers’ commitment to recycling.
PepsiCo has been investing in breakthrough food packaging technology and is now introducing a fully compostable bag made with plant-based materials. Starting with Off The Eaten Path, one of Frito-Lay’s plant-based brands, this industrially compostable packaging will be available to consumers in the U.S. at Whole Foods stores beginning this month. Notably, the company also announced today that it is willing to work with other companies to license the same technology at no cost given the importance of creating a circular food packaging system.
1Against 2020 baseline. 2Includes Pepsi, Pepsi MAX, Pepsi MAX Lime, Pepsi MAX without caffeine, Pepsi Light, Pepsi Light without caffeine.
New distribution partnership brings nanobubble technology to farms in Chile & Peru
Moleaer, the world’s leading nanobubble technology company, is expanding into Latin America, having formed a new distribution partnership with Kapicua to bring its innovative, patented technology to the region’s agriculture industry.
Nanobubbles, 2500 times smaller than a grain of salt, enhance agricultural productivity by providing a multitude of benefits that range from improving water quality, creating a healthier root zone and increasing crop yield. Healthy roots promote healthy plant growth, enabling plants to better handle environmental stress.
Kapicua has been trialling Moleaer’s nanobubble technology since 2019 in Chilean agriculture, focused on blueberry crops. These trials have proven that injecting billions of nanobubbles into the plant watering system increases crop growth and agricultural profitability. Now, Moleaer’s nanobubble technology will be widely available for farmers throughout the region.
Benjamin Labbe, Agricultural Engineer, Kapicua said: “We’re proud to partner with a sustainably-focused technology company that is committed to providing world-class solutions to increase productivity for farmers. Through our partnership, we’re increasing access for farmers in Latin America to nanobubble technology. Moleaer’s nanobubbles will provide farmers with a cost-effective, chemical-free solution to improve crop growth and decrease time-to-harvest rates.”
Cristian Gwinner, Fruit Area Manager, Elemental Foods said: “Since implementing Moleaer’s nanobubble generator, we’ve observed an increase in oxygen levels in our irrigation water. Last season we saw an 11 percent increase in fruit size and overall quality of our blueberries by using oxygen nanobubbles to improve water quality. Our plants have had much better vegetative growth, with improved vigor that has produced better fruit size.”
Nick Dyner, CEO, Moleaer, said: “Farmers throughout North America and Europe have already seen an improvement in water quality, root development and increased productivity after using our nanobubble technology within their irrigation systems. We’re excited to now bring our patented technology to Latin American farmers through our commercial partnership with Kapicua.”
Moleaer’s nanobubble generators have already been installed in over 75 greenhouses across North America and Europe improving plant health and harvest yields across a variety of fruits and vegetables.
12.000 apple trees the start of new sustainable agriculture
Brännland Cider to establish 10 hectares of commercially viable and productive apple orchards in collaboration with farmers, regional governments as well as national and international stakeholders from academia and business.
Bringing together these stakeholders within the agricultural sector has been ongoing since 2017 in parallel with Västerbotten-based ice cider producer Brännland Cider establishing its ciders in national and international markets.Preceded by trial orchards in the vicinity of the city of Umeå on the Baltic seaboard the company is now scaling up its ambitions.
In December 2019 the Swedish Board of Agriculture granted funding to the project “Commercial productive apple growing in a northern climate – innovation for new climate resilient agriculture in northern Europe” within the framework of EIP-agri, the European innovation partnership for productivity and sustainability within agriculture.
This is a major step in creating an entirely new and unique terroir for ice cider in northern Sweden but of course also opens up a large scope of opportunities for farmers in the north to diversify with positive implications for agriculture, regional food production, tourism and the larger sustainability issues our society as a whole faces. The project aligns to the ambitions highlighted in the EU Green Deal and 2030 UN Sustainability Development Goals, says Andreas Sundgren Graniti, founder of Brännland Cider.
The project is set to run between 2020 and 2023 and will combine traditional cultivation models with more conventional methods, trial a wide base of apple varieties to create an opportunity for northern farmers to diversify, optimize land use, decrease transports and water usage in the region and create a new branch of climate resilient sustainable agriculture. The long term aim also includes stream-lined product development partnerships from the individual farmer to local, regional and global markets.
This project will expand on and put into practice, on a commercial scale, the positive experiences Brännland Cider has made so far in our trial orchards in Burträsk 100 km north of Umeå and at Röbäcksdalen just outside Umeå. It’s not just about growing apples where none have been grown before for the purpose of creating a product of singular quality; we want to see our region blossoming and this is a huge step towards achieving that goal, continues Sundgren Graniti.
A strong team has formed around the mission. The project will be led by Daniel Pacurar from Boreal Orchards who up until now has been instrumental in contributing practical experience and academic knowledge to the trial orchards that have formed the basis for the project. Daniel is a horticultural engineer with a PhD in Agronomy and long experience in R&D and in leading large and ambitious projects within biotech, horticulture and forestry.
We are honored to partner with Brännland Cider in the pioneering work of establishing apple growing in Northern Sweden. It will be an exciting journey. We are going to learn new ways of growing apple trees, creating new terroir expressions for ice cider and generate knowledge that will benefit future generation of apple growers in the north and elsewhere. We are laying the path as we walk it. I am confident that the team´s compounded experience and expertise will secure the successful completion of this project. Brännland Cider is arguably making the best ice cider on the planet. Together we are now laying the foundation of what is going to be an evolution of that fantastic achievement, says Daniel Pacurar, Boreal Orchards.
