PepsiCo last week announced the continuation of its global agriculture accelerator, the Positive Agriculture Outcomes (PAO) Fund, by granting 14 business projects across 11 countries funding to address some of the most intractable challenges facing agriculture today.
“We’re in a race to reach the world’s 1.5 degree target and, to do our part, PepsiCo has set a range of ambitious PepsiCo Positive goals, including expanding regenerative agriculture practices and building the resilience of those in our agricultural supply chain by preparing them for a changing climate,” said Rob Meyers, Vice President of Global Sustainable Agriculture.
Launched in August 2021, the PAO Fund offers PepsiCo market teams co-investment to accelerate diverse and innovative Positive Agriculture projects. The investments are designed to “de-risk” promising initiatives while accelerating the development of innovative technologies and approaches that can help scale the adoption of regenerative agriculture practices.
Projects from the PAO Fund’s inaugural investment are the focus of PepsiCo’s latest, four-part digital video series, “Growing Our Future.”
The series looks at how PepsiCo is working with farmers in Thailand to help them adapt to climate change, how farmers in Greece are adopting more efficient irrigation systems to adapt to increased drought, how PepsiCo has partnered with farmers in Punjab, India to develop kilns that can turn their agricultural waste into fertilizer, and how PepsiCo is supporting research in Brazil to help potato farmers improve soil health.
Positive Agriculture, one pillar of the company’s pep+ (PepsiCo Positive) agenda, is the company’s aim to source crops and ingredients in a way that accelerates regenerative agriculture and strengthens farming communities. It includes goals to, by 2030, spread the adoption of regenerative farming practices across 7 million acres, improve the livelihoods of more than 250,000 people in its agricultural supply chain, and sustainably source 100% of its key ingredients.
For more information about PepsiCo’s Positive Agriculture agenda visit here.
Source: PepsiCo. Full release here
Photo: Credit PepsiCo
