PepsiCo announced the continuation of its global agriculture accelerator, the Positive Agriculture Outcomes (PAO) Fund, by granting 14 business projects across 11 countries to address serious 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,” explained Rob Meyers, Vice President of Global Sustainable Agriculture. “Reaching PepsiCo’s – and our planet’s – goals will require fresh thinking and innovation from our agriculture teams and partners all over the world, which is why the PAO Fund was created to make it a bit easier for good ideas to get off the ground.”
Having been launched in 2021, the PAO Fund offers company market teams co-investment to accelerate diverse and innovative agriculture projects. The invesments are meant to ‘de-risk’ initiatives while accelerating the development of innovative technologies and approaches which can help scale the adoption of regenerative agriculture practices.
“With support from the PAO Fund, we’ve been able to generate much greater engagement and innovation both at the farm level and through closer collaboration with our global teams,” said Haseeb Malik, Senior Manager of Agriculture AMESA, PepsiCo. “This work is not only helping to advance our pep+ goals in the market, but it’s also meaningfully improving the lives of the farmers we’re working with.”
Projects from the PAO Fund’s investment are the focus of PepsiCo’s latest four-part digital series which looks at how the company is working with farmers in Thailand to help them adapt to climate change, how farmers in Greece are adopting more efficient irrigation systems and partnering with farmers in Punjab, India, to develop kilns which can turn agricultural waste into fertiliser.
Positive Agriculture, one pillar of the company’s agenda is to source crops and ingredients in a way that will accelerate regenerative agriculture and strengthen farming communities. By 2030, it aims to spread adoption of regenerative farming practices across 7 million acres and improve the livelihoods of more than 250,000 in its supply chain.
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