We have worked with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) for many years as a global partner in water. In July 2020, we expanded our work with TNC and launched a partnership in regenerative agriculture. Our agronomists and researchers from around the world have been collaborating with TNC to develop a framework for designing impactful soil health programs across the spectrum of farm sizes, crops and sourcing regions in our direct supply chains. Teams are working to identify, encourage and measure the practices that improve soil health locally and make farmers more economically and environmentally resilient over time. Practices are tied to key principles of soil health, including soil fertility management, minimal tillage, crop rotation, continuous cover and regenerative landscapes. Our approach to soil health builds on our Smart Agriculture Goal, transforming data into actionable insights and providing technical support to advance the best regenerative farming practices. While the framework gives us the needed structure to continue building our approach, our teams are already taking steps to improve soil health: ¥ Partnering with Instituto Nacional de Tecnolog’a Agropecuaria (INTA) and Soil Capital to train early adopter farmers in Argentina on regenerative agriculture practices, demonstrating how soil health and farm productivity go hand in hand ¥ Working with the Sustainable Food Lab to harmonize the way we measure impact of and capture insights from our programs and scale the adoption of practices that improve our farmersÕ resilience ¥ Experimenting with innovative methods for growing rice in the state of Arkansas in the US in partnership with Indigo Ag ¥ Managing a model farm in the Western Cape of South Africa to research innovative practices to improve soil health ¥ Committing more than 500,000 USD to support model farms that promote the adoption of sustainable practices at four universities across our barley and rice sourcing regions in the US (University of Arkansas, University of Idaho, North Dakota State University and Montana State University)