PepsiCo extends regenerative farming across 4.7m acres

PepsiCo has expanded regenerative, restorative, or protective agricultural practices across 4.7 million acres as it works towards a target of 10 million acres by 2030.

The food and beverage group also reported that 70% of its key ingredients were sustainably sourced in line with its internal guidelines, while a further 2% of volumes were progressing through an engagement pathway. Its 2030 objective is to reach 90%, with targeted work continuing across the remaining ingredients affected by structural barriers.

The programme covers agricultural inputs feeding PepsiCo’s global manufacturing network, including potatoes, whole corn, oats, virgin fibre, and other materials representing more than 0.01% of annual volume-based supply.

Farmer engagement, technical assistance, peer networks, locally designed incentives, demonstration projects, and data-led support contributed to progress during 2025. Programmes were developed with local organisations to reflect differences in crop, climate, soil, water, and agricultural market structure.

STEP Up for Agriculture brings PepsiCo together with Unilever and several other food, beverage, and retail businesses to strengthen organisations providing advice directly to farmers. Tailored support and train-the-trainer programmes are intended to extend technical capability beyond isolated demonstration farms.

Since 2021, PepsiCo has supported approximately 224,000 people through agricultural livelihood programmes, approaching its 2030 goal of 250,000. Activities include work with women farmers, cooperative models, demonstration farms, advisory services, improved seed, and digital tools.

Jim Andrew, chief sustainability officer and executive vice president at PepsiCo, said: “As we continue work to help advance toward a more resilient and sustainable food system, I’m proud of the notable progress we’re making — particularly in scaling regenerative agriculture, restorative or protective practices and expanding opportunities that help strengthen livelihoods.”

Field practices meet manufacturing demand

Agricultural sourcing programmes must operate across widely different production environments, because practices suited to potatoes in northern Europe may not transfer directly to corn, oats, fibre, or tropical crops. Soil condition, rainfall, irrigation, farm size, market access, and available equipment all influence what can be implemented.

Regenerative agriculture also lacks one universally applied operational definition. Programmes may include crop rotation, cover crops, reduced tillage, water management, biodiversity measures, fertiliser optimisation, and lower pesticide use, with environmental results dependent on the starting condition and the continuity of adoption.

PepsiCo counts an acre as delivering regenerative impact where adopted practices produce quantified improvements across at least two environmental outcome areas, including soil, water, climate, and biodiversity. That approach moves the assessment beyond the presence of a practice, although measurement across millions of acres remains demanding.

Procurement teams must connect field activity with the volume entering manufacturing. Supplier declarations, farm records, chain-of-custody systems, sampling, and third-party assurance contribute to confidence that sourced ingredients meet the relevant guidelines.

Those records become more important as agricultural programmes feed into emissions, resilience, and water strategies. Food manufacturers depend on stable yields, predictable quality, and secure access to raw materials, while degradation of soil or water can affect production volumes long before it appears within a factory efficiency measure.

Farmers carry much of the transition risk because new methods may require equipment, additional labour, data collection, technical support, or a period of yield uncertainty. Multi-year purchasing relationships and financial incentives may therefore be needed if adoption is to continue after a pilot programme ends.

Lower-carbon fertiliser, precision agriculture, and climate-resilience tools are being developed alongside land-management practices. More than 15 global innovation projects received support through PepsiCo’s Positive Agriculture Outcome Accelerator during 2025, while demonstration farms and trials reached over 1,100 farmers.

The revised sustainable-sourcing framework acknowledges that some volumes face persistent barriers, including fragmented smallholder supply, weak local advisory services, limited data, unavailable certification, and dependence on open-market purchasing. A uniform timetable would conceal those differences rather than resolve them.

Targeting 90% sustainable sourcing while progressing the remainder creates a more differentiated programme, but future reporting will need to show how constrained volumes are classified and which changes qualify as sufficient progress.

PepsiCo’s purchasing scale gives it considerable influence over farm programmes, suppliers, and agricultural inputs, while also making implementation more complex. Measures must function across thousands of producers, several tiers of intermediaries, and manufacturing plants operating under different regulatory and commercial conditions.

Acreage provides a useful measure of reach but cannot demonstrate every environmental outcome. Soil health, water quality, biodiversity, emissions, yield resilience, and farm economics will determine whether practices remain viable over several growing seasons.

Sustainable sourcing is consequently becoming a more operational form of agricultural supply management, linking agronomy, procurement, traceability, manufacturing demand, and farmer income. Progress towards 10 million acres will depend on whether the programme can preserve ingredient volumes and farm economics while producing environmental improvements that withstand closer measurement.