March 2024

The Sustainable Soils Alliance (SSA) has been tracking the food industry’s progress in regards to regenerative agriculture and soil health initiatives via its Soil Health Industry Platform (SHIP). The 2023 SHIP report highlights our key Observations, soil-related Business Initiatives and based on our analysis we’ve recommended six Priority Actions to take forward in 2024.

Steady growth for the Regenerative ‘brand’

2023 saw more UK and international food and drink businesses announce new and expanded ambitions around regenerative and sustainable agriculture. This includes SHIP members, Yeo Valley, G’s Fresh, Arla, Nestlé, Tesco, Waitrose and PepsiCo (see here) and other manufacturers/processors including Carlsberg, McCain, Oatly and Cargill. 

These ambitions are reflected in new targets, partnerships, pilots and investments aimed at increasing the amount of land that is farmed regeneratively through these businesses' supply chains.

They also reflect a global trend. As part of the COP28 Action Agenda on Regenerative Landscapes, PepsiCo and Nestlé were among businesses that agreed to advance regenerative agriculture practices on 160 million hectares of land (triple the size of France), involving approximately 3.6 million farmers.

Soil health plays a prominent role in all of these initiatives – as both an outcome and indicator of progress, and we continue to see the Regenerative ‘brand’ as an important driver of overall soil awareness and understanding – uniquely capable of uniting corporations, consumers and farmers behind a common cause.

…but the concept remains undefined

An important caveat is that the definitions and criteria used to classify regenerative agriculture remain diverse, making it a challenge to identify trends, commonalities or a tangible evidence base. While we continue to believe (as we argued in this blog last year), that a loose, bottom-up philosophy will generate the best results, those results need to be clearly and transparently quantified and communicated if the regenerative concept is to be trusted.

Some businesses have agreed to report and monitor the impact of their regenerative projects against a number of metrics such as soil health, greenhouse gas emissions and farmer livelihoods, but the lack of detail leaves the term – and its advocates – open to accusations of greenwashing. Research by FAIRR on 79 global agri-food firms found that despite 50 (63%) publicly referring to the potential of regenerative agriculture as a solution to the climate and biodiversity crises, more than half of these (32/50), have not put in place any formal quantitative company-wide targets to achieve those ambitions. 

Soils at the heart of climate resilience

Corporate reputations are not the only factor on the line when it comes to soil health. UK research has shown how climate change has overtaken energy as the biggest driver of food price increases over the past 2 years - and healthy soils are a critical factor in this calculation. Healthy soils with good structure including optimum levels of organic matter can withstand storms and droughts better than degraded ones, but the consequence of today’s industrial agriculture is that soil health is in systematic decline.

This is a global problem, but research published in Nature confirmed that regions with highly industrialised agriculture like North America and Europe suffer far greater yield declines during droughts than regions with more subsistence farming.

Soils – and in particular resilient, biodiverse, carbon and water storing soils – now have a clearer economic value than ever before, as is recognised by a growing list of stakeholders outside the food and drink sector – banks, insurance and water companies alongside governments and farmers.

Data is key, and farmer control over it

Aligning these stakeholders requires a joined-up approach, and fundamental to this is a consistent approach to soil data to demonstrate impact and change over time, but also illustrate who will benefit from, and therefore should pay, for the action required.

This question of payment is increasingly urgent as farming’s role in delivering nature and climate change benefits becomes clearer. It came to light in farmers' resistance towards the proposed Red Tractor ‘Greener Farms Commitment’ (GFC) which farmers feared was a mechanism for transferring costs back to them - whilst preventing them from monetising ecosystem services elsewhere.

The GFC is on hold until the NFU's independent review of RT has been completed, but the incident highlights the importance of transparency over who benefits and who should pay for the practices that improve soil health, especially if stakeholders from outside the food supply chain are to be involved. This requires a consistent approach to the collection, interpretation, storage and ownership of soils data.

Soil health is about more than soil carbon

Practical concerns around the application of regenerative practices on farms have also emerged this year, in particular the over-emphasis of biodiversity/carbon enhancement outcomes at the expense of overall soil health. A widespread example is farmers adopting minimum tillage and direct drilling without first understanding – and addressing problems in their sub-soils.

Ignoring compacted subsoils for example can lead to runoff, surface water flooding and nitrous oxide being lost because of anaerobic conditions. In other words ‘regenerative practices’, if applied in the wrong context – and without an underlying understanding of soil health, risk achieving the opposite of what was intended.

To avoid this, the regenerative ‘curriculum’ must address soil health holistically, and not just carbon. It must acknowledge risk as much as opportunity and it must be built around outcomes, rather than a one-size-fits all approach to practices.

This work is part of our Soil Health Industry Platform (SHIP), which has been running for two years to foster collaboration and cooperation in the field of soil health among major UK food and drink businesses. The SHIP consists of 11 members: Arla, G’s Fresh, Kellogg’s, Morrisons, Nestlé, Nomad Foods, PepsiCo, Sainsbury's, Tesco, Waitrose, Yeo Valley. If you are interested in joining the Platform or would like to learn more about it, please get in touch: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..