The largest certified regenerative agriculture programme globally in the cotton supply chain has been launched by Olam Agri, a leading agribusiness in food, feed, and fibre. The programme will meet the growing demand for traceable and sustainably grown cotton, having started in the U.S. and Côte d’Ivoire, with Australia and Brazil to follow this year.
Olam Agri began its regenerative agriculture journey in cotton in 2020 to provide cotton farmers with the tools, resources, and access to market opportunities to mitigate climate risks, increase soil fertility, sequester carbon, encourage biodiversity, and manage water and energy use. The new programme is the culmination of this work and will offer customers cotton products with full chain of custody certification from production, harvesting, ginning and storage, to shipment. All farms and ginning facilities under the programme will be regenagri® certified.
In Côte d’Ivoire, Olam Agri has already achieved regenagri® certification for 100% of its directly sourced cotton. A total of more than 250,000 hectares of land, 20,000 farm enterprises and both of Olam Agri’s ginning facilities that process 100,000 metric tonnes (MT) of seed cotton in the country have been regenagri® certified. In the U.S., Olam Agri has received regenagri® certification for 15,000 hectares of farmland and three ginning facilities producing 20,000 MT of cotton.
“At Olam Agri, we want to transform food and agriculture supply chains to have a net positive impact on climate, nature and biodiversity while ensuring transparency and traceability,” said Ashok Hegde, CEO, Fibre, Agri-Industrials & Ag Services at Olam Agri. “We’ll be able to provide our customers access to sustainably sourced cotton that is fully traceable from production to shipment. By embracing regenerative agriculture, we aim to restore and enhance soil health, reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and sequester more carbon, while fostering resilience and prosperity for farmers.”
Dr. Shailendra Mishra, our Head of Climate, Environment, and Natural Capital at Olam Agri, said, “This programme helps strengthen sustainability standards in the cotton supply chain. By harnessing agriculture to support healthy soil and yields, while providing end-customers with the assurance of their cotton product’s origin, this is a pivotal step forward in Olam Agri’s commitment to nature-, climate- and livelihood-positive goals. Embracing regenerative cotton builds more resilient supply chains, creating a unique opportunity for global brands and retailers to offer sustainably grown cotton to consumers worldwide.”
Franco Costantini, CEO at Regenagri said, “It’s great to see Olam Agri’s serious commitment to promote regenerative agriculture and we’re very pleased to support them in scaling up the implementation of the regenagri® programme globally. regenagri® aims to secure the health of the land and those who live on it, and has tripled in growth over the last year, with more than one million hectares of land worldwide under the programme. It will provide Olam Agri with a third-party programme to assess, certify and report the environmental impact across different commodities, from cotton to food products.”
As one of the world’s largest cotton merchants, Olam Agri has decades of experience building an integrated global cotton business by working directly with large-scale farmers in Australia and the Americas, and smallholder farmers in Africa. Cotton directly supports the livelihoods of 350 million people worldwide, including 100 million farmers[1].
[1] International Institute for Sustainable Development, IISD (2020). Global Market Report: Cotton. Sourced from link.
