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Regenerative Agriculture & General Mills’ Commitment to Advancing It by 2030 What You’Ll Learn

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Regenerative Agriculture & General Mills’ Commitment to Advancing It by 2030 What You’Ll Learn Regenerative Agriculture & General Mills’ commitment to advancing it by 2030 What you’ll learn This interactive PDF is designed to highlight: The critical challenges facing farmers and food production. What regenerative agriculture is and how it can address those challenges. How General Mills is advancing regenerative agriculture and measuring environmental and economic impacts where it sources key ingredients. Regenerative Agriculture & General Mills commitment to advancing it Click a chapter to learn more 1 Regenerative Agriculture The Critical Challenges We are losing farmable topsoil at unsustainable rates. Agriculture’s contribution and susceptibility to climate change is increasing. We depend on thriving farms for all the food we make Farmers are under mounting economic pressure. and eat, but there are many critical challenges facing the Agriculture practices are threatening water quality and quantity. productivity and livelihoods of farmers. Regenerative Biodiversity loss negatively affects farm productivity & resilience. agriculture can help address all of these challenges. Considering the full value chain Nat Geo Image Collection from farm to fork to landfill, David Liittschwager, agriculture makes up more than half of General Mills’ greenhouse gas emissions, making it our biggest lever to reduce our footprint and reach our climate commitment. 1 sq ft of undisturbed 1 sq ft of grassland farmland NPR Illustration The Critical Challenges 2 Regenerative Ag Defined 6 Principles of Regenerative Agriculture MINIMIZE KEEP THE SOIL INTEGRATE What is it? SOIL DISTURBANCE COVERED LIVESTOCK Agriculture’s contribution and susceptibility to climate change is increasing. Regenerative agriculture is a holistic, principles-based Farmers are under mounting economic pressure. approach to farming and ranching that seeks to strengthen Agriculture practices are threatening water quality and quantity. ecosystems and communities, UNDERSTAND CONEXT MAXIMIZE MAINTAIN LIVING which helps maintain a steady OF YOUR FARM OPERATION CROP DIVERSITY ROOT YEAR-ROUND loss negatively affects farm productivity & resilience. Biodiversity supply of high-quality ingredients for General Mills products while Business as Usual Regenerative Ag addressing some of society’s biggest environmental and economic challenges. Water Click to hear from active farmers Cycle How does it work? Regenerative Agriculture repairs and enhances natural ecosystem processes like the water cycle, which leads to greater resilience in food production. Regenerative Ag Defined How GMI is advancing it 3 Click each location to learn more Goal Northern Plains Drive farmer adoption of Oats & Wheat Regenerative Agriculture in our key sourcing regions, and Great Lakes Raw Fluid Milk measure environmental and economic outcomes. Southern Plains Wheat Several brands like Rollover each image to learn more Annie’s and Epic are partnering directly with regenerative farmers In multi-day workshops, and ranchers to Farmers receive 1-on-1 source regeneratively- farmers receive grounding on grown ingredients, the regenerative principles coaching for 3 years to help and Cascadian and hear from local farmers develop and implement a Farm is working to regenerative management commercialize the about how they are practicing deep-rooted perennial plan. grain, Kernza. regenerative agriculture. We are working with the Ecosystem Services Market Education Coaching Consortium to pilot a market Brand so farmers can be paid for the Engagements environmental services they Farming differently can be We are tracking changes in soil provide through regenerative isolating. We are connecting health, biodiversity, water quality ag. The farmers in our farmers to others going down and farmer economics over Southern Plains pilot are some the regenerative path through several years as the farmers of the first in the country to field days, café meet-ups, and implement their regenerative pilot this market. groups on social media. management plans. Community Measurement Market How GMI is advancing it 4 Measuring the impacts Rollover each image to learn more How and why Collecting insect Collecting soil samples samples, measuring We are working to advance to monitor changes in insect services like soil health and carbon pollination, and the science of regenerative sequestration, which measuring bird diversity agriculture to better fights climate change. as an indicator of understand it’s economic ecosystem health. and environmental impacts, and developing technologies Soil Health Biodiversity that will allow us to quantify these impacts across entire Modeling farmers’ impact on water quality regions where we source key Monitoring farm and quantity and costs and returns to ingredients. conducting in-field tests understand economic to see how well the soil impact of regenerative absorbs water during management. heavy rain events. Water Farmer Economic New Technologies Resilience We’re using satelite We’re developing imagery to track changes approaches for using in agricultural practices sensors like microphones like cover crops and and cameras to detect no-till on the landscape insects and birds using over time. artificial intelligence. Satellites In-field Sensors Click to take the survey Measuring the impacts Thank you. General Mills is committed to advancing regenerative agriculture and we appreciate your time. If you would like to learn more about our efforts, please visit the link below..
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