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How can we make agriculture sustainable for farmers, business and the planet? The answer is literally at our feet... in healthy soil.
According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, a third of the world’s soil is moderately to highly degraded.
Regenerative agriculture practices such as cover cropping can help protect and replenish it.
The problem is that the initial costs and steep learning curves often needed to implement these new techniques can be a challenge for farmers.
Over the last ten years, we have been working to overcome this barrier by providing financial and technical support to farmers in Iowa who supply our business with the soy we need for our products.
Watch ‘The Future of Farming’ here, then read our Q&A with Stefani Millie Grant, Unilever Senior Manager, External Affairs and Sustainability, who has been championing the project from the frontline since the very beginning.
Healthy soil is essential to grow healthy crops. However, the soil we rely on for our food is eroding at an alarming rate. This is why we’re helping to protect and regenerate soils for the next generation of farmers as well as for the future of our business. Healthy soils can also mitigate climate change.
Soil is failing across the world: every five seconds a soccer pitch of soil is eroded, and it’s estimated that by 2050 around 90 % of the Earth’s soils could be degraded. What does this mean for people and planet, and what can we do to restore a healthy balance to the soil we need to survive?
Raised in Iowa, Stefani Millie Grant, Senior Manager, External Affairs and Sustainability, knows how to talk to farmers. Now her voice is at the heart of a film by The Climate Pledge about Unilever’s Iowa cover crop programme. We spoke to Stefani days before the film aired.