The retail and grocery giant is digging into the regenerative farming business with new goals for improved sustainability and greenhouse gas emissions for its farming suppliers.
By working with Midwest Row Crop Collaborative (MRCC), Walmart will help farmers in the region to ensure that 30 million acres of land is converted to regenerative practices. This would increase soil health, decrease greenhouse gases and improve water quality and diversity.
The company will assist 30,000 farming operations with the transition and hopes to show measurable impact on at least 1 million of the 30 million acreage by 2030. These goals were developed in coordination between Walmart and MRCC. The partners are also developing KPIs.
Along with the regenerative agriculture changes such as cover crops and no-tilling to increase carbon sequestration in the soil, the company will also commit to helping farms reduce on-farm emissions by 7 million metric tonnes. This is part of Walmart's Project Gigaton, which is working to reducing 1 billion metric tonnes of emissions by 2030.
Walmart aims to become a regenerative agriculture company. It first sought to drive regeneration through key crops such as wheat, corn, soy and rice. More recently, the company updated the Row Crop position statement and endeavours to develop smarter agriculture practices that align with Walmart's broader commitment to become a regenerative company.
MRCC also works with other large food companies, including Cargill, Kellogg's, Unilever and other non-governmental organisations, but Walmart is the only retailer which makes it unique.
According to Mikel Hancock, the senior director of sustainable food and agriculture at Walmart, the programme with MRCC will help connect farmers in a peer-to-peer network of regenerative agriculture and help financially. Technical training and assistance will be the focus of the programme.
