Regenerative agriculture: 5 key practices to conserve nature

Every year on July 28th we acknowledge World Nature Conservation Day. This day represents the connection between a healthy environment and our health as individuals and as a society. It is also a day to increase our awareness of the critical importance of protecting natural resources.

Healthy soils are a critical natural resource; they can enhance nutrient retention cycling, absorb and hold water, reduce erosion, support microbial diversity, and sequester carbon. They are also the foundation for Grupo Bimbo as a healthy and successful business. Because of the critical importance of healthy soils, we have set an ambitions 2050 goal of sourcing 100% of our key commodities from farms using regenerative agriculture practices. To meet this goal, we have partnered with Earthworm Foundation to help guide our exploration and adoption of best practices and strategies in regenerative agriculture.

Grupo Bimbo is committed to the promotion of systems of regenerative agriculture that improves soil health, biodiversity and ecosystem health through regionally specific practices that prioritize minimizing soil disturbance, improving the water cycle, and lowering our carbon footprint while enhancing the producer community. Through our Global Regenerative Agriculture Framework, we outline three core principles of regenerative agriculture: soil health, biodiversity and ecosystem health, and resilient producer communities. Regenerative agriculture practices may vary based on crops, farming systems, and locations. Key regenerative agriculture practices include:

1. Minimize or eliminate tillage - farmers avoid plowing soils and instead drill seeds into the soil.
2. Crop rotations - such as planting three or more different crops in rotation over several years.
3. Cover cropping - plants grown to cover and build nutrients in the soil after farmers harvest the main crop.
4. Integrate livestock - which can add diversity to the products produced on a farm, add value to cover crops, and recycles nutrients through manure.
5. Reduction of synthetic inputs - sometimes any practice that involves reduced fertilizer or pesticide use is considered regenerative agriculture.

We have a lot of plans for the years ahead to build our understanding of what it will take to meet our regenerative agriculture goals. For 2022 we have ongoing regenerative agriculture pilots for corn and wheat in Mexico, and are engaged in new pilots for wheat in France and the United States. We also have opportunity to learn through a canola pilot in South Africa. In addition to these pilots, we are incorporating regenerative agriculture guidelines into our supplier policies, developing data collection and evaluation systems to track progress, and expanding and deepening our relationships with strategic partners.

Regenerative agriculture is important, challenging, and time sensitive work that will take strong collaborations to accomplish. We look forward to communicating about our collaborations and ongoing progress to meet our regenerative agriculture goals.