b"WHEN MCCAIN FOODS announced inagriculture pledges, and each has their own definition of what June that all potatoes the company boughtthat includes. In April, PepsiCo, who own FritoLay, pledged it would be grown using regenerativewould use regenerative farming practices across seven million agriculture practices by 2030, the impactacres by 2030, which is approximately equal to PepsiCos entire was immediate. Story headlines focusedagricultural footprint.on the pledge and on social media,With each announcement, its showing regenerative growers and others in the agricultureagriculture means something different to everyone you ask.industry questioned what it would all include.Regenerative agriculture and other so-called green pledges are nothing new in the business or agriculture worlds. Over the past few decades, more companies have made pledges and shared their plans to be greener companies. In that same time, farmers have focused for decades on ways to conserve their soil and make their farms more sustainable overall.This all means farms and agriculture as a whole is becoming greener, but theres multiple terms being used to describe these processes. Whether its regenerative agriculture or sustainability, they all have various meanings and practices behind them.The principles that I have seen around regenerative ag are similar to the ones that have been employed by some farmers for years. Reducing inputs, using cover crops, reducing tillage to keep the soil in the field. All of those things have been around for a long time, explains Laura A cover crop planted on Harold Perrys farm in the winter. van Eerd. What I'm hoping though is thatPHOTO: HAROLD PERRYby packaging it as regenerative ag, that there's an opportunity to look at the entire system and think about it, as opposed toThe Regenerative Ag Promisemanaging one crop. For McCain, the response to their regenerative agriculture van Eerd is a professor of sustainableannouncement has, so far, been what they expected. Customers soil management in the School ofseem excited, while the growers they work with have shown Environmental Sciences at the Universityinterest and asked questions.of Guelph, and a research programI think that most of the feedback was that folks wanted more director for the Ontario Agri-Fooddetails, they wanted to know more. They wanted to understand Innovation Alliance. She finds there canthe kind of specific criteria we were working on, the costs, the be a lot of different definitions of whatdifferent practices, and how we would fund and finance those regenerative agriculture is, but if it can bedifferent practices, Jess Newman, senior director of agriculture viewed as a toolbox with options to helpand sustainability with McCain says.farmers, it can be beneficial. In the initial news release for the announcement, McCain said Several potato processing companiesit planned to increase crop diversity, ensure soils are covered by which have made regenerativeliving plants or plant residue year-round, reduce agro-chemical SPUDSMART.COM Fall 20217"