Danone exec on the Farm Bill's role in helping CPGs establish sustainable supply chains

Since January, we’ve been talking about how a new Farm Bill is coming this year, and the many ways it’ll impact the retail industry, from funding SNAP benefits to furthering hemp legislation.

Since then, there’s been uncertainty around whether the new bill will actually come this year. Lawmakers didn’t pass the bill by the deadline at the end of September, and while some Republicans are pushing for newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson to pass it ASAP, there have also been talks of a one-year extension, as recently mentioned by Arkansas Sen. John Boozman and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

Such extensions aren’t unusual—the 2008 and 2014 bills both had them, noted Chris Adamo, VP of public affairs and regenerative agriculture policy at Danone, who worked on both editions as former staff director of the US Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry and legislative counsel for US senator Debbie Stabenow, respectively.

“It’s always good to get that five-year vision and pathway down about what these policies are going to be,” Adamo said. “It’s a good thing to get a new farm bill for sure, and we’re very supportive of that, but I don’t think we should overthink the impact of an extension.”

The extra time doesn’t mean stakeholders across retail have lost sight of their priorities for the bill; Adamo shared with Retail Brew what the Silk and Activia maker hopes to see in the forthcoming edition of the bill, and how it’ll impact the company’s goal of establishing a more sustainable supply chain.

Cropping up: With brands like Activia, Oikos, and International Delight, Danone purchases organic and conventional dairy milk from 400 farms, Adamo said, and milk and almonds are part of its regenerative farming initiative. It continues to work on establishing programs for oats and soy as well, he said, which are used in brands like Silk.

The Farm Bill impacts all of these efforts, he noted, as it’s “designed to equip the farm and ensure their resiliency, ensure their supply, and then, of course, improve their environmental or social impact in a variety of ways.”

Adamo said Danone is focused on funding for programs under the Farm Bill’s conservation title, one of 12 titles in the bill, which made up 6.8% of funding in the 2018 Farm Bill. It covers programs providing $$ and technical assistance to farmers to adopt practices that improve things like soil health and water quality. This title includes several public-private partnership programs (i.e. if Danone puts in $1 towards improving farms, the USDA will match it), like the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) as well as Climate-Smart Commodities programs, which fund partnerships to produce and market commodities that increase productivity, boost resilience, and cut down on emissions.

• Danone is currently involved in a $70 million Climate-Smart partnership focusing on dairy, oats, and soy, which the USDA granted it last year.

Through these partnerships, Danone has worked with groups like the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the Environmental Defense Fund, Adamo said.

“[We’re] getting experience through work building templates for partnerships that leverage the USDA dollars in our own budgets, and we can get more done on the ground with more farmers,” Adamo said.

Fit the bill: Danone’s current policies have been informed by its advocacy in previous iterations of the bill. Ahead of the 2018 Farm Bill, Danone North America—as well as Mars, Nestlé USA, and Unilever US—formed the Sustainable Food Policy Alliance, which advocated for continued funding for research and public-private partnerships like the RCPP, among many other issues.

After the 2018 Farm Bill, Danone received a $3 million Conservation Innovation Grant from the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service to focus on soil health in farms, including those within Danone’s supply chain. Adamo said Danone “learned a lot” through that initiative, including creating incentive contracts with the farmers and discovering new technologies to reduce manure’s methane emissions. These learnings informed its approach to policy objectives for the 2023 Farm Bill, he said.

“More and more companies, more and more NGOs are working together in partnership models, where these programs have just a greater importance.”