ADM has expanded its regenerative agriculture and climate-smart agriculture program to Europe, helping agriculture create a more sustainable food system by providing financial and technical support to farmers who are taking positive steps to reduce their carbon footprint, improve water quality and promote soil health and biodiversity through the implementation of regenerative agriculture practices. 

Rolling out the company’s regenerative agriculture program in Europe starting in the UK and Poland in 2023 is a key part of ADM’s plan to support regenerative farming practices across 4 million acres globally by 2025. ADM initially launched its regenerative agriculture efforts in North America, and after successfully enrolling more than 1 million acres in 2022, expanded its efforts with a goal of covering 2 million acres in 2023.

ADM sees important opportunity to scale up regenerative agriculture in countries across Europe. In the UK, for example, ADM will work with key partners to utilize remote data collection and satellite technology to give participating growers crucial insights into the carbon footprints and sustainability performance of their crops.

Candy Siekmann, director of Climate Smart Ag Origination at ADM, said, “With a value chain that stretches from hundreds of thousands of producers to downstream customers, ADM is well placed to scale regenerative agriculture practices around the globe. Farmers are at the center of our business. They’re the leaders of this effort, and our success will be built on their advancement of regenerative agriculture practices that will benefit their businesses and their legacies for their families. The roll-out of our program to Europe is another way in which ADM is partnering with farmers and building the resilient supply chains of the future by reducing food and agriculture’s impact on the environment and lowering carbon emissions across the crops we source.”  

Rolling out regenerative agriculture to the UK

ADM’s regenerative agriculture program in the UK rewards growers for implementing regenerative agricultural practices (such as conservation tillage, cover crops and companion cropping) across their milling wheat and oilseed rape. Producers who enroll will receive incentive payments for each hectare farmed using regenerative practices, and practices will be verified using the latest technology. ADM’s program is designed to work alongside new and evolving farm support programs in the UK to ensure growers get the support they need to undertake practices that will ensure the resilience of ADM’s UK supply chain.  In the UK, the ambition is to scale up the program, using our “scorecard” concept to widen the range of commodities ADM is sourcing from our farm suppliers while tracking and reporting on their validated regenerative practices.

It starts with the farmer

Martin Lines, a farmer from Cambridgeshire, England, said: “I really welcome ADM’s new incentive package for growers for regenerative agricultural practices. Seeing the company incentivize farmers for positive actions across the farmed landscape that can deliver climate, biodiversity, and productivity improvements -- on top of a market price for the goods we produce -- is a really positive step. I look forward to further opportunities to market crops through ADM and being supported in delivering best practice actions across our farm.”

David Hutchinson, a farmer in Northamptonshire, England, said “It’s great to be involved in ADM’s new regenerative agriculture program. It’s one of the first of its kind in the UK marketplace and financially helps support farmers in doing the right thing, creating more sustainable farming systems for the future.”

As well as financial support, technical support is a key component of the program. ADM has partnered with the UK based regenerative agriculture advisory company, Ceres Rural, to provide one-to-one support for growers who are adopting regenerative best practices throughout the growing season. This advice is aimed at supplementing the advice of the growers’ own advisers – helping empower growers to make the right decisions for their farms.

Robust data collection and reporting are critical to the successful roll-out of the program. The UK program was carefully co-designed with global agricultural data platform, Map of Agriculture Ltd., incorporating leading data analysis to streamline data collection and validation, and the latest satellite verification technology to verify actions.

Reliable and easy to understand reporting systems are important to provide ADM’s customers with insight into the carbon footprints of their own supply chains, along with other environmental concerns such as soil health and biodiversity. ADM will also ensure that data is reported back to the growers so they can monitor the performance of their crops – using key performance indicators such as carbon emissions, nitrogen use efficiency, and yield. Alongside reporting, the program will also empower growers to benchmark on these key performance metrics and offer guidance to help them continue to reduce their on-farm emissions.

Jonathan Lane, managing director at ADM Agriculture said “At ADM, we have many years of experience of partnering with farmers, and we have the opportunity to help create value for them and for participants across the value chains in which we operate. We look forward to rolling out the project to even more farmers and customers in the UK to help drive regenerative agriculture practices at scale.”

Rolling out regenerative agriculture to Poland

ADM has also begun rolling out the program to farmers in Poland. Producers in ADM’s supply chain in Poland can enroll their oilseed rape and wheat crops and receive incentives per hectare for introducing regenerative agriculture practices.

In addition to receiving financial incentives, farmers participating in the program in Poland, like farmers in the UK, will also receive agronomic guidance. That support starts with on-farm assessments, where agronomists visit fields and together with farmers design individual development plans tailored for each individual farm. Regular training sessions will then provide enrolled farmers with the opportunity to learn more about topics such as sustainable farm economics or soil fertility. Farmers will be able to share their experiences with one another and discuss different techniques during field visits and peer learning opportunities arranged by ADM.

“ADM's regenerative agriculture programs are great for farmers; the financial incentives help those who strive to reduce emissions and take care of the environment," said Jacek Górski, a farmer from Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland."

Robust data collection and listening to the perspectives of the grower are critical to ensure all considerations specific to the region are taken into account. During the site assessment, soil samples will be collected to verify the amount of total organic carbon, microbial biodiversity, and nitrogen mineralization as a baseline. Soil sampling is designed to measure soil carbon stock and evaluate carbon sequestration. There are other indicators such as GHG emissions, soil disturbance, on farm biodiversity and soil coverage that ADM will monitor annually, and others that will be verified on a mid- or long-term basis. ADM will report all that data back to the growers, to help their decision making around adopting practices that will have the best impact on the health of their soil and wheat and oilseed rape crop yields.

Anna Bykowska, commercial manager, ADM Direct Polska said, “We are proud of our farmer-centric approach in Poland and the relationships we have built with individual farmers over the years. Together we are supporting each other to produce crops that will provide food to a growing global population, while maintaining the health of the soil for generations to come. In the future, we look forward to expanding the program in Poland to other crops such as corn or sunflower which are both playing an increasing role in the Polish agricultural industry.”