Soil health and climate-resilient supply chains: key takeaways

In brief...

Healthy soil underpins everything from crop yields to carbon storage, yet it rarely appears on a balance sheet or a corporate climate strategy. That was the central challenge explored in a recent Innovation Forum webinar, which brought together voices from farming, food manufacturing, fresh produce, hospitality, and agricultural technology to discuss how soil health can build more resilient supply chains.

We heard from…

Jérôme von Burg, head of sustainability Food Zone Europe, Nestlé
Inge Huijbrechts, chief sustainability and security officer, Radisson Hotel Group
Xavier Roussel, vice president marketing and sustainability, Dole Food Company
Thomas Gent, regenerative farmer and founder, Gentle Farming
Roberta McDonald , director of programme, Agreena
The discussion was moderated by Ian Welsh, co-founder and chair, Innovation Forum.

Why soil health matters to business

Soil health is a broad term covering nutrient balance, water infiltration, erosion resistance, microbial life, and more.

For companies that rely on agricultural supply chains, soil health affects resilience, productivity and exposure to climate-related disruption.

Healthy soils support water retention, carbon storage and crop resilience.

Degraded soils increase volatility and supply risk.

Regenerative agriculture is increasingly being seen as a lever for both decarbonisation and long-term business continuity.

Measuring progress: soil carbon and beyond

Soil health can mean different things in different contexts, from nutrient balance to biodiversity. At present, soil carbon is the most scalable proxy because it provides a practical basis for measurement, reporting and verification.

“Soil health is a very generic term. It could be made up of maybe 15 different parameters depending on what regulation framework you’re looking at, what definition in a scientific paper and so on.” – Roberta McDonald, Agreena

Agreena currently operates one of Europe’s largest soil carbon projects, covering several million hectares across 20 countries, with farmers contributing data on tillage history, fertiliser use, and cover cropping.

Soil carbon does not capture every benefit, but it is currently the most workable metric at scale.

Remote sensing, soil sampling and third-party verification are strengthening confidence in claims.

Measurement of wider co-benefits is still developing.

Roberta McDonald was candid that regenerative agriculture is still largely stuck at pilot scale. The demand side for carbon credits is growing – particularly as the EU’s carbon framework develops – but more needs to be done.

Her recommendation: multi-year, multi-stakeholder programmes that spread the financial burden rather than placing it on a single company.

“We seem to still be talking football pitches, size of impact. We should be talking potentially about what percent of a supply chain is actually being impacted.” - Roberta

Roberta McDonald

Head of program

Agreena

The farmer economics challenge

Another major theme was the economics of transition. While regenerative practices can deliver long-term benefits, farmers often face upfront costs, operational changes and uncertainty before those gains are realised.

Thomas Gent, who farms around 800 hectares in eastern England using a no-till system, shed light on the realities. He explained that while food companies are increasingly interested in field-level data, farmers are often burdened with multiple overlapping surveys and inconsistent reporting requirements.

Gent warned that overly prescriptive standards risk stifling experimentation and innovation at farm level. Different crops, geographies and farming systems require flexibility, and successful regenerative systems often look very different from one region to another Standardising data collection across supply chains, he argued, would significantly reduce administrative pressure

Gent also highlighted the economic challenge of crop diversification. Legumes and rotational crops may be highly beneficial for soil health and carbon reduction, but they often struggle to compete economically with dominant commodity crops such as wheat.

Farmers cannot absorb the risks of transition alone. Panellists repeatedly emphasised the need for:

Longer-term contracts

Coordinated financing models

Better data alignment

Preferential banking products

Multi-year, multi-stakeholder funding approaches

The consensus was that regenerative agriculture will only scale when costs, incentives and rewards are shared more evenly across value chains.

“If you lock farmers into a checklist, you defeat the point of regenerative farming.”

Thomas Gent

Founder and regenerative farmer

Gentle Farming

The farmer economics challenge

“Food companies that want diverse rotations need to support the full farm rotation, not just the single commodity crop they buy,” he noted.

Farmers cannot absorb the risks of transition alone. Panellists repeatedly emphasised the need for:

Longer-term contracts

Coordinated financing models

Better data alignment

Preferential banking products

Multi-year, multi-stakeholder funding approaches

The consensus was that regenerative agriculture will only scale when costs, incentives and rewards are shared more evenly across value chains.

Regenerative agriculture requires flexibility, not rigid checklists

Another important debate centred on how regenerative agriculture itself should be defined.

Rather than relying on rigid practice-based certification systems, several panellists argued for a more outcomes-based approach focused on measurable improvements in resilience, emissions reduction, biodiversity and soil function.

That flexibility, speakers suggested, is one of the defining differences between regenerative agriculture and more rigid agricultural certification models.

At the same time, companies acknowledged the need for sufficient accountability and verification to maintain trust and avoid greenwashing. Balancing flexibility with credible measurement remains one of the sector’s central challenges.

What companies are already doing

Nestlé and Dole provided insight into how large companies are applying regenerative principles in practice.

“About 60–70% of our footprint is coming from ingredients. Soil health is absolutely central.” – Jérôme Von Burg, Nestle

Nestlé described regenerative agriculture as a core part of its sustainability strategy, with three emerging areas of measurable impact:

Improvements in soil health indicators such as organic matter and microbial activity

Better farmer economics through lower input costs and improved resilience

Early signs of enhanced food quality

Von Burg referenced a multi-country study involving roughly 200 farmers over several years that showed promising early indicators, including improved flavour profiles and nutritional characteristics in certain crops. However, he stressed that larger-scale replication is still needed before definitive claims can be made.

“About 60–70% of our footprint is coming from ingredients. Soil health is absolutely central [...] It’s not just about polluting less. It’s about renaturing. It’s about bringing back life.”

Jérôme von Burg,

Head of sustainability Food Zone Europe

Nestlé

Xavier Roussel of Dole Foods described a different set of challenges in tropical agriculture, where warm climates cause organic matter to decompose rapidly and soil compaction remains a persistent issue.

Dole’s approach focuses on:

Maintaining continuous soil cover

Returning crop residues to fields

Reducing synthetic fertiliser dependency

Investing in microorganisms and biofertilisers

Roussel shared the examples of their pineapple operations – incorporating crop residues required seven years of additional costs before synthetic fertiliser use could eventually be reduced by around 30%.

The lesson, he argued, is that regenerative agriculture can deliver strong returns – but only over longer time horizons that require patience and financial resilience.

“The business case is there — but you need the ability to hold on long enough to see the effect.”

Xavier Roussel

Chief marketing and sustainability officer

Dole Food Group

“The business case is there — but you need the ability to hold on long enough to see the effect.”

Xavier Roussel

Founder and regenerative farmer

Dole Food Group

“People connect to food. If you can connect that to the carbon removal story, people want to be part of it.”

Inge Huijbrechts

Chief sustainability and security officer

Radisson Hotel Group

Regenerative agriculture extends beyond food supply chains

One of the webinar’s most interesting perspectives came from outside the food sector.

Inge Huijbrechts of Radisson Hotel Group explained how regenerative agriculture and carbon removals are becoming increasingly relevant to hospitality net-zero strategies.

Radisson’s “Verified Net Zero Hotels” initiative incorporates high-integrity carbon removal credits linked to regenerative agriculture projects through Agreena. The company first prioritises emissions reductions across operations before using nature-based removals to address residual emissions.

Inge Huijbrechts explained that the shift away from traditional carbon offsetting towards verified removals was driven by three factors:

Tightening regulation

Increased scrutiny from corporate clients

The need for stronger credibility and traceability

For hospitality businesses, regenerative agriculture also creates a compelling narrative around food systems, resilience and local impact that resonates strongly with guests and corporate customers alike.

The discussion highlighted how regenerative agriculture is increasingly intersecting with sectors far beyond farming and food manufacturing.

Scaling will depend on collaboration

The panel stressed that regenerative agriculture will not scale through isolated pilots alone. Progress will depend on shared responsibility across the value chain and a more flexible, outcomes-based approach.

Companies, investors, banks, governments and farmers all have a role to play.

Multi-year, multi-stakeholder models are more likely to spread cost and reward fairly.

Regenerative agriculture should be understood through outcomes such as resilience, soil function, emissions and biodiversity, rather than a fixed checklist of practices.

Businesses that want more resilient supply chains will need to take soil health seriously. That means investing for the long term, improving measurement and building partnerships that support farmers through the transition. Scaling the transition will depend on collaboration

Several panellists stressed the importance of multi-crop, multi-year and multi-stakeholder models that support entire farming systems rather than individual commodities. Crop rotations, for example, only function effectively when multiple buyers support different crops within the same agricultural system.

Regulation was also discussed as a critical enabling factor. While evolving EU sustainability rules can increase complexity, von Burg argued that stronger standards and more rigorous claims requirements are ultimately necessary to build trust and prevent greenwashing.

A shift from pilots to mainstream business strategy

The panel agreed that regenerative agriculture must move beyond isolated sustainability projects and become embedded within mainstream climate, sourcing and procurement strategies. Resilient supply chains, they argued, will ultimately depend on resilient soils.

The transition cannot rely on any single actor. Farmers, corporations, banks, policymakers and consumers all have a role to play in reshaping agricultural systems that are more resilient, lower carbon and economically sustainable.

Soil health is rapidly becoming a foundational business issue. Companies that invest in healthier soils today may be better positioned to manage future climate risks, supply disruptions and regulatory pressures – while those that fail to engage may face increasing operational and financial vulnerability in the years ahead.