Decarbonizing agriculture: PepsiCo and Yara’s bold new partnership

PepsiCo Europe and Yara have announced a significant long-term partnership designed to provide farmers with advanced crop nutrition programs to decarbonize the food value chain across multiple countries in Europe.

Under this partnership, PepsiCo Europe farmers will gain access to top-tier crop nutrition products and advice, alongside precision farming digital tools. These resources will help farmers increase nutrient use efficiency (NUE), enhance yields, and lower the carbon footprint of their crops. Yara, a leading crop nutrition company in Europe, will be responsible for supplying the necessary products and services.

Yara will deliver up to 165,000 tons of fertilizer per year to PepsiCo, covering about 25% of their crop fertilizer needs in Europe by 2030. This supply will predominantly consist of Yara Climate Choice fertilizers, which are low-carbon footprint fertilizers produced either from renewable ammonia in Herøya, Norway, or low-carbon ammonia via carbon capture and storage (CCS) currently being developed at Yara Sluiskil. The mix will also include Yara’s premium nitrate-based mineral fertilizers, which have a carbon footprint approximately 50% lower than most non-EU fertilizers due to catalyst technology. The goal is to transition fully to Yara Climate Choice fertilizers by 2030 as production scales up and technologies advance.

The collaboration highlights both companies’ dedication to building a sustainable food system in alignment with the European Union’s climate goals. It will also support farmers through the transition costs to ensure their livelihoods are not adversely affected.

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Archana Jagannathan, Chief Sustainability Officer at PepsiCo Europe, stated, “This partnership with Yara aligns with our end-to-end transformation known as PepsiCo Positive (pep+) and will be critical as we transition towards the net-zero food system of the future. Providing our farmers with fertilizers that have a lower carbon footprint and supporting them to improve crop nutrition end-to-end will allow us to make a significant step towards our target of achieving net zero by 2040.”

The partnership will include approximately 1,000 farms, covering around 128,000 hectares across the European Union and the UK. Initially focusing on potatoes, a key crop for PepsiCo, the efforts will later extend to other crops such as oats and corn. Fertilizer production and in-field emissions are significant contributors to PepsiCo’s average potato carbon footprint in Europe, making this collaboration crucial for emissions reduction.

Additionally, the partnership will enhance sustainable nutrient management practices across PepsiCo farmer groups. This will involve full-season crop and soil data capture and monitoring using PepsiCo’s CropTrak and ML Analytics tool, complemented by Yara’s digital solutions like AtFarm platform and MegaLab soil analysis.