ETHICAL SOURCING
the process of, for instance, planting cover crops, moving to a no-till situation or managing nitrogen.
There’ s also often a cost impact. Sometimes farmers can see a decrease in yield for those first few years. That’ s where the public-private sector becomes incredibly important in financially incentivising these practice changes. When you combine grant money and funding by Tate & Lyle and our customers, it helps farmers adopt those practice changes without completely taking on the risk themselves of changing practices. They’ re literally betting their family farm on some of these practices. You have to be mindful of what change looks like and how hard change really can be on a farmer’ s bottom line.
If you look at our programme for stevia, a lot of people we support are small shareholder farmers farming in their gardens. It is their family livelihood, it’ s not an industrialised process. Stevia has only been farmed for about 50 years. For us, a lot of that programme was teaching them how to take soil samples, how to analyse the results of the soil samples and matching that with expertise to understand what that analysis tells us in terms of changes to practices.
It’ s also understanding the timing of fertiliser use and the amount of fertiliser applied – more isn’ t necessarily better. We saw a 76 % reduction in the use of fertiliser in 2023, which directly impacts greenhouse gas emissions and local water quality. So now you have a sense of pride among the farmers. There’ s been a huge shift there in the positive direction.
We also have experimental farms where we continue to work with farmers on optimising fertiliser use or seeing how cover crops perform. It’ s very much seeing is believing. When you’ re seeing a change in your neighbor’ s farm for the better and a new income from, say, a cover crop, that might be something that those farmers opt into next year.
“ As you look to feed a growing population, we can’ t feed them with the practices that we have today. We know we need to change”
WHAT IS TATE & LYLE DOING TO SUPPORT FARMERS? Farmers were the original stewards of the environment, they were the original environmentalists. You talk to our corn farmers in the states or European suppliers, they understand their farms incredibly well. They understand soil health. They’ re adopting regenerative agricultural practices oftentimes on their own, or they know what needs to be done but need assistance or some technical expertise in getting there.
I think philosophically aligning with your partners is critical to the success
186 April 2025