Page 6 - C:\Users\sandi\OneDrive\Documents\Flip PDF Professional\Ebook-AgriculturesSustainableFuture-Final\

Chapter 1

AGRICULTURE’S Corporate giants’

SUSTAINABLE climate pledges take

FUTURE:

Feeding more root, pressing
while using less
farmers to go green

By Philip Brasher and Hannah Pagel

he alfalfa, oats, radish and clover sprouting giant Cargill Inc., that is testing whether cor-
in Lance Lillibridge’s Iowa corn field this porate titans of the grocery, food, beverage,
Tfall will improve his soil, prevent pollutants restaurant and apparel industries can persuade
from running off his fields into local streams farmers to meaningfully reduce the environmen-
— and, according to scientists, help reduce the tal footprint of the crops they grow and animals
greenhouse gas emissions that are changing the and they produce.
climate.
Officials with many corporations, including such
These cover crops, which can also reduce air names as Walmart, McDonald’s, General Mills,
emissions from nitrogen fertilizer, a major agri- Levi Strauss and Co. and Danone, have in some
cultural contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, cases made sweeping sustainability pledges to
also are earning him $35 to $50 an acre in extra consumers and investors to slash the carbon
cash. That’s a meaningful source of income emissions in their supply chains and meet corpo-
during a period when farmers can barely cover rate sustainability targets.
their cost of producing corn and soybeans. “Consumers are really clearly awakening and
Lillibridge is taking part in a project, co-spon- demanding a lot more with regard to the cli-
sored by agribusiness mate,” said Ryan Sirolli, global row crop sus-
tainability director for Min-
nesota-based Cargill, one of
Consumers .are .really . the world’s largest grain and

clearly .awakening .and . meat processors and ingredient
demanding .a .lot .more . suppliers. “You might debate
with .regard .to .the .climate . . climate change and everything
else, but I’d say on the con-
—Ryan Sirolli, . .Cargill sumer side it’s kind of a fore-
gone conclusion.”

6 www.Agri-Pulse.com