Non-profit Mad Agriculture and Whole Foods Market are on the cusp of starting a three-year pilot programme that will convert 1,000 acres of marginal cropland in Wisconsin’s Driftless area to a native ecosystem, thanks to $1.02 million raised from the organic grocer and some of the largest food brands.
This July, the two companies launched “a national biodiversity highway initiative aimed at reconstructing native ecosystems across American farmland,” with a goal of raising $1 million for the Wilding project, Whole Foods shared in a press release.
The three-year Wilding pilot programme will restore natural habitats via prairie strips, which are “linear plantings of prairie grasses and wildflowers that are strategically located, typically around production areas,” Elizabeth Candelario, chief strategy officer at Mad Agriculture, told AgTechNavigator.
Last year, Whole Foods approached Mad Agriculture as the non-profit was starting to plant prairie strips in the Driftless region — home to endangered bird species and where prairie remnants “can be brought back to life” – to see if the non-profit can help it plant these strips throughout the retailer’s supply chain, Candelario explained.
The Wilding project is all part of a broader 50-year strategy to boost biodiversity and increase climate resilience on 65 million acres of U.S. farmland by connecting plots of restored land, Candelario said. “We were starting to recognize that all the science was pointing to the fact that interconnectivity is critically important,” she noted.
“We’re designing landscapes where biodiversity isn’t an afterthought—it’s an asset. We’re beginning to rebuild the connective tissue of the continent by creating corridors of life that support farmers and inspire innovation. This could be the beginning of America’s next great infrastructure project, built through collaboration with those who work the land and care for its future," Omar de Kok-Mercado, director of Wilding at Mad Agriculture, said in a press release.
What role do CPGs, retailers play in supporting regen ag?
As part of the Wilding project, the organic retailer donated $500,000 as part of a matching challenge, which was matched by a cohort of consumer-packaged-goods (CPG) and food companies, including Bob’s Red Mill, Kind, Oatly, Olipop, Patagonia Provisions, The Campbell’s Company, UNFI, Yerba Madre, and others, Mad Agriculture shared in a press release.
Additionally, the pilot project is supported with technical partners, including Adaptive Restoration, the Meadowlark Organics Community Mill, the Savanna Institute, Southern Driftless Grasslands, and Wild Farm Alliance.
Over the years, CPG companies have taken a more active role in supporting regen ag, due in large part to risk management and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting requirements, Candelario noted.
“Food companies started to realize, ‘Oh my gosh, not only are we going to have to report on scope three, but it looks like 70% of our scope three emissions are coming from farms.’ And so that is when I think we really saw a change in terms of companies starting to look down their own supply chains to sort out where their ingredients were coming from — what impact the farming that was behind those ingredients was having environmentally — and thinking about how they were going to change sourcing strategies to meet different environmental ESG goals,” Candelario elaborated.
Earlier this month, PepsiCo and Griffith Foods invested $1 million to support regenerative farming practices in Brazil, as AgTechNavigator previously reported. Nestle is also supporting regen ag in Mexico by helping farmers manage water resources with agtech as part of its broader sustainability strategy.
