22 October 2022, New Delhi: PepsiCo today announced the continuation of its global agriculture accelerator, the Positive Agriculture Outcomes (PAO) Fund, by granting funding to 14 business projects in India and 10 other countriesto address some of the most intractable challenges facing agriculture today.
In India, PepsiCo has partnered with farmers in Punjab to develop kilns that can turn their agricultural waste into fertilizer known as biochar.
In recent years, PepsiCo India’s Pep+ (Pep Positive) agenda in the supply chain of potatoes have created awareness and impact in Punjab & West Bengal helping farmers manage paddy crop residue by ploughing back into soils and conversion of paddy straw into “biochar ” through the process of pyrolysis.
PepsiCo India is also funding the infrastructure (retort kilns) to help growers in these states. This includes carbon farming under regenerative agriculture through (1) Moldboarding of crop residue into the soil, (2) Conversion of crop residues through pyrolysis process into biochar with ~40% carbon. These two initiatives have helped improve the soil health and reducing practices such as stubble burning that release carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Rob Meyers, Vice President of Global Sustainable Agriculture said, “We’re in a race to reach the world’s 1.5 degree target and, to do our part, PepsiCo has set a range of ambitious PepsiCo Positive goals, including expanding regenerative agriculture practices and building the resilience of those in our agricultural supply chain by preparing them for a changing climate.”
Launched in August 2021, the PAO Fund offers PepsiCo market teams co-investment to accelerate diverse and innovative Positive Agriculture projects. The investments are designed to “de-risk” promising initiatives while accelerating the development of innovative technologies and approaches that can help scale the adoption of regenerative agriculture practices.
The PAO Fund is providing ongoing support to over 20 different projects around the world through grants totalling more than $7.4 million awarded in 2021 and 2022.
“With support from the PAO Fund, we’ve been able to generate much greater engagement and innovation both at the farm level and through closer collaboration with our global teams,” said Haseeb Malik, Senior Manager of Agriculture APAC, PepsiCo. “This work is not only helping to advance our pep+ goals in the market, but it’s also meaningfully improving the lives of the farmers we’re working with.”
