Major Food Companies Join to Address Climate Change and Healthy Soils by Creating a New Standard Focused on Regenerative Agriculture

LOS ANGELES, March 6, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Carbon Underground and Green America, in partnership with Ben & Jerry's (Unilever), DanoneWave, Annie's (General Mills), and MegaFood have begun development of a global verification standard for food grown in a regenerative manner. The standard seeks to encourage farmers to restore the carbon cycle and build soil health, crop resilience, and nutrient density.

This work builds upon the Regenerative Agriculture Definition created in 2017 by The Carbon Underground, California State/Chico, and the Regenerative Agriculture Initiative that includes over 150 companies, organizations and scientists as signatories. The core design team for the new standard also includes farmers, ranchers, soil scientists and certification experts and includes input and agreement from nearly 50 organizations on the goals of the new standard, which include:

• Ability to rapidly achieve impact
• Outcomes-based metrics, that can be verified and enforced
• Value, viability and flexibility for farmers, with credit for outcomes already achieved
• Clarity and transparency for supply chains
• Compatibility with related standards, such as Regenerative Organic, Organic, and Non-GMO. (Companies or growers who have invested in complementary standards will have those achievements recognized within this program, but they are not mandatory.)
• Flexibility for improvements as new data become available

"The goal of this new standard is not simply to restore soil, but to do it quickly," said Larry Kopald, President and Co-Founder of The Carbon Underground. "The windows for avoiding catastrophic climate change and complete top soil loss are projected to close in decades, not centuries."

The key objective is to create a scalable, achievable standard that can work across the Global Supply Chain. Benefits of implementing these actions include greater food security, more stable supply chains, greater viability of farmers, and drawdown of carbon from the atmosphere to mitigate climate change and rebalance the carbon cycle.

"By shifting to regenerative agricultural practices, which, by definition, work with nature, we can leverage photosynthesis to restore the water and carbon cycles," said Dave Rapaport, Global Social Mission Officer at Ben & Jerry's. "Working to avoid the irreversible effects of climate change and the loss of our remaining top soil."

For more information, or to sign up for updates, contact Randi Fiat at [email protected] or Ed Barker at [email protected].

About The Carbon Underground
The Carbon Underground was created to accelerate the restoration of soil and the transformation of agriculture to regenerative practices that will mitigate climate change, support farmers, and improve supply chains, food quality and food security around the world. By working with businesses, scientists, governments and food producers The Carbon Underground creates and manages programs to reverse the threats of climate change, stop topsoil loss, and reduce supply chain stress.
www.thecarbonunderground.org

About Green America
Green America is the nation's leading green economy organization. Founded in 1982, Green America provides the economic strategies, organizing power, and practical tools for consumers, businesses and investors to solve today's social and environmental problems. Green America's Center for Sustainability Solutions brings together diverse groups of stakeholders to solve the complex sustainability problems that no individual business, organization, or leader can solve alone.
www.greenamerica.org
www.centerforsustainabilitysolutions.org

SOURCE Green America

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