Mark Hillsdon May 18, 202611:47 PM
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/land-use-biodiversity/pilots-practice-new-bid-scale-regenerative-agriculture–ecmii-2026-05-18
- Summary
- Regenerative agriculture market forecast to hit $1.76bln by end of 2025
- Food giants McCain, PepsiCo and Nestle ramp up regenerative farming investment
- Trump administration pledges $700m for regenerative agriculture pilot scheme
- Industry body SAI Platform pilots regenerative farming framework across 25 countries
- Lack of clear definition hampering investor confidence and sector scale-up
May 18 – Regenerative agriculture has never been short on investment and innovation, its problem has been how best to scale and encourage greater take-up among farmers, and more commitment along value chains.
This year, food giant McCain announced that a 200-hectare farm in North Yorkshire would become its third Farm of the Future, joining two others in Canada and South Africa as beacons for regenerative agriculture.
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The move is part of its commitment to source 100% of its potatoes from farms using sustainable methods by 2030, with the company having invested over 35 million pounds in the UK alone to help farmers make the transition.
In May, PepsiCo launched the second edition of VivaOliva, bringing regenerative agriculture practices to a further 35 smallholder olive farmers in Spain, while in April, Nestle signed a four-year deal with agricultural consultants Soil Capital to scale regenerative practices across 230 farms in France, Belgium and the UK, covering 13,000 hectares.
Even the Trump administration has got in on the act, raising a few eyebrows last December when it announced a $700 million regenerative agriculture package as part of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) agenda.
Pledging support for whole-farm planning, the pilot project has set out to bundle together initiatives around water, soil and biodiversity. However, the same administration had also cut a Biden-era $3 billion budget for climate smart agriculture earlier in 2025.
With high levels of investment and interest, it’s no surprise that a leading market researcher expects the value of regenerative agriculture to reach $1.76 billion by the end of the year, and $5.77 billion by 2034.
Businesses are investing to meet changing climate policies and deliver corporate commitments, as well as backing sustainable farming as a way of shoring up food supply chains vulnerable to climate change and geopolitical shocks. But despite the impressive figures, and the high-profile advocates, it’s a sector that has struggled to scale.
At a farm level, the move from conventional to regenerative practices represents a huge leap of faith for farmers, as they take on the financial risk of yields temporarily dropping off during the switch. But who covers the cost incentives for farmers to get involved, or payments to cover their dip in productivity, remains a grey area, hampering regenerative agriculture’s take-up.
María Montosa Ródenas, technical specialist at FAIRR, a network of food system investors, said in an email that regenerative agriculture lacks a clear, widely understood definition, which makes it, “harder to justify sustained capital allocation”.
She adds that investors need to understand “whether these strategies are credible, measurable and capable of delivering outcomes, compared with more established approaches such as organic farming or agroecology”.
A new framework for regenerative agriculture to be launched in June by SAI Platform, a non-profit network for the food and beverage industry, is seeking to answer that need.
The Regenerating Together Programme framework is based on a pilot that has run across 25 countries over the last three years and involved platform members including Nestle, Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC) and McCain.
Its developers say it has been designed to make it easier for food companies to verify improvements in their supply chains, while reflecting the reality of farming on the ground. It defines regenerative agriculture as an outcome-based farming approach that protects and improves soil health, biodiversity, climate and water resources while supporting farmer livelihoods.
The four-step approach can be applied to crops and livestock, and begins with an analysis of the farm’s environmental risks, before prioritising outcomes and introducing regenerative practices. Continuous improvement plans are then developed based on farm monitoring, along with farmers’ local knowledge and experience.
LDC is one of the world’s largest buyers and processors of food and agricultural products, and annual sales of $50 billion. With operations in over 100 countries, key commodities include oilseeds, grains and dairy.
Axelle Bodoy, the company’s global head of regenerative agriculture, hopes the new framework will harmonise the sector, ending debates about specific practices and metrics. Previously, when working with other companies to co-develop regenerative projects, she found there were often competing definitions, priorities and targets. Some customers wanted to introduce practices that matched their own definition of regenerative agriculture, but weren’t suited to the farm’s soil or the climate conditions.
This caused confusion, increasing the administrative burden on both farmers and LDC staff, and ultimately reduced the chances of programmes scaling.
“(It’s) a way to move away from every company having their own initiatives,” she says, and means that farmers and business committed to regenerative agriculture “can focus their investments and efforts in making the change happen in the field, rather than data management and administrative tasks”.
According to Brigid McAleer, communications director at the SAI Platform, the framework offers practical, on-the-ground support.
It will be just as applicable to a smallholder coffee farmer in Uganda, who is focused on improving soil health, as it is a beef rancher in Argentina working on conserving habitats and biodiversity.
The framework isn’t prescriptive, she adds: “It’s for the farmer to decide what they want to do and what they think is best for their land, from their own observations, from their own experience.”