IN Brief:
- Forty organisations have signed a declaration supporting SAI Platform’s Regenerating Together Programme.
- The framework sets shared outcomes and indicators for regenerative agriculture while allowing local adaptation.
- The move strengthens manufacturer pressure for measurable farm-level resilience across ingredient supply chains.
SAI Platform has secured backing from 40 organisations across the global food and agriculture value chain for its Regenerating Together Programme, strengthening efforts to move regenerative agriculture from isolated sourcing projects into a more consistent operating framework.
The declaration of intent has been signed by companies including Carlsberg Group, Diageo, FrieslandCampina, and Mondelēz International. It comes ahead of the programme’s public launch at SAI Platform’s Annual Event in Saskatoon, Canada, in June 2026.
The programme has been designed to support regenerative agriculture across food and beverage supply chains by setting shared impact areas, outcomes, and indicators. Rather than imposing a single global production model, it allows adaptation to regional farming systems, local agronomy, and commodity-specific requirements.
That structure will be central to whether the programme gains practical traction. Food manufacturers increasingly need agricultural change that can be measured, audited, and carried through procurement systems, but implementation looks different across dairy, beef, cereals, cocoa, coffee, oilseeds, fruit, vegetables, and brewing crops. Soil condition, water availability, biodiversity pressure, fertiliser dependence, farm economics, and access to technical support all shape what can be achieved at farm level.
The declaration recognises pressure from climate volatility, biodiversity loss, soil degradation, water stress, and farmer livelihood risk. These are no longer peripheral sustainability concerns for food manufacturers. They influence long-term supply reliability, ingredient quality, cost exposure, and the credibility of environmental claims attached to finished goods.
Dionys Forster, director general at SAI Platform, said: “The breadth and calibre of signatories is a clear signal that the industry is ready to leave fragmented approaches behind and work together towards meaningful change.”
Shared measurement is now one of the main fault lines in regenerative agriculture. Programmes that cannot be translated into comparable indicators are difficult to audit, difficult to finance, and difficult to integrate across multi-supplier procurement systems. The challenge becomes sharper where manufacturers buy from several origins or work through intermediaries rather than direct farm relationships.
The declaration follows a wider shift towards upstream resilience in food manufacturing. Häagen-Dazs has linked regenerative dairy supply with resilience at its Arras ice cream site, while Nestlé has been using crop science to strengthen Robusta coffee yields. In both cases, farm-level performance is being pulled closer to factory-level planning.
Regenerative agriculture still carries commercial and technical tension. Farmers may face higher transition risk before benefits are realised, while manufacturers need stronger evidence to support claims, satisfy retailers, and meet reporting requirements. A common framework does not remove those pressures, but it gives companies a clearer basis for defining progress and comparing outcomes across regions and commodities.
The programme’s next test will be adoption beyond the declaration. Shared indicators only become useful when they are applied consistently through sourcing contracts, supplier support, data collection, and verification. If that happens, the value will sit less in the regenerative label itself and more in the procurement discipline behind it: clearer sourcing data, stronger resilience planning, and a better evidence base for agricultural transition.
