How can we grow more food with less pollution?

Our agriculture and land use initiatives focus on securing a sustainable, productive food supply that also supports a resilient environment.

Our agriculture initiatives

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  Improve sustainability of commodity crop production

  Why: Fertilizer is the engine of agriculture, but its inefficient use — along with soil degradation — creates air and water pollution.

  How: Help farmers improve on-farm conservation practices. With Walmart asking suppliers to improve fertilizer efficiency, food companies are starting to support farmers’ efforts to reduce environmental impact while improving their yields.

  Photo: NOAA
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  Protect wildlife on working lands

  Why: Our current system to protect at-risk wildlife isn’t working, and it depends too much on regulation, often a heavy burden on landowners.

  How: Establish habitat exchanges that allow landowners to get paid for maintaining habitat that houses vulnerable species, like the monarch butterfly. Taken to scale, these practices pay off for wildlife, too.
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  Reward farmers for smart water use

  Why: Demand for water is outstripping supply in arid regions like the American West.

  How: Remove barriers to water trading [PDF] and create incentives that reward farmers and ranchers – the region’s largest water consumers – for practices that return water to rivers.