Joanna Guza:
Regenerative agriculture. We've heard the term, but do we really know what it means? I talked with Elizabeth Shepherd, she's the manager of integrated supply chain and agricultural strategy at McCain Foods, and she helps describe regenerative agriculture and what they are doing to implement sustainable practices when it comes to growing potatoes. Elizabeth, what is regenerative agriculture?

Elizabeth Shepherd:
For us, it was very important to define that because it is the question, and unlike organic where there is kind of a stamp that everybody understands this is what organic means. Regenerative, I think that as an industry, we're still getting there. And so we've defined regenerative through a set of seven principles that are really measuring the way that the land is treated both in and out of the potato cycle. So these include questions like your input, use efficiency. Our tillage is something that we look at closely with potatoes, uh, days of living cover while the ground has something, if it's a cover crop, if it's a rotation crop on it. Uh, biodiversity as well, measuring the areas around the fields, uh, those areas that may not be as actively managed. And so we use our framework, uh, which can be found online. When you look up McCain regenerative agriculture, it's a public facing framework. It's something that we welcome all other players from industry, uh, to take a look at because really we use that as our global framework. Then across that we evaluate our growers who are interested in participating in our regenerative programs against that framework to help them see where they're actually landing and where there may be areas for changing their practices, but also so that we're able to use a region by region approach rather than ever thinking that one size fits all in agriculture.

Joanna Guza:
You guys have a lot going on, and now if you speak specifically to potato farms, what are some of those regenerative practices that they're doing?

Elizabeth Shepherd:
It's so interesting to me when I come to events like this because a lot of the principles of regenerative actually do translate across the different crops. But when we look at tillage potatoes, we know that there are going to have to be some tillage events, especially planting as well as the harvest. But there are ways that we can reduce the intensity of a tillage event, um, by changing the practice, the implement, the speed. And so when we are able to reduce the intensity of our tillage, that can help build those living roots in the soil. Um, it can also help with moisture retention. So that would be one area where it's very obvious in a no-till system. Potatoes are not quite at a no-till system, but there are step changes that we can make that will have an impact in your soil health.

Joanna Guza:
Just out of my curiosity, I was gonna ask, do you think there's a future of no-till potatoes?

Elizabeth Shepherd:
I'm always open, um, but the other thing that I wanna stress is we've got a team of agronomists. Our agronomists are on site in each of our production regions, and they're the scientists. They're, they're only feeding people like me, uh, information. And so it's such a treat to get to work with them because they're up to speed on the literature. They're the ones that are staying in contact with the universities and really seeing all kinds of different agronomic trials that are taking place. And so they're a huge asset for us.

Joanna Guza:
And I know one thing when it comes to doing regenerative practices, it comes at a cost to that farmer. How are we gonna finance some of these regenerative practices?

Elizabeth Shepherd:
It's a great question and it's something that we're working very hard on. I've got two partnerships in Canada that I think really are examples of what can be done here in the us and we take examples from some of the programs that we McCain has, uh, both in France, in the Netherlands, across our supply chain, and so our partnership with Farm Credit Canada there, we have an effective interest rate rebate on lending up to $400,000. And so this is a program where Farm Credit Canada, uh, works with customers who have lending with them, offers an incentive, and McCain as well matches or better to that incentive depending on where the grower is on the framework. And so another example would be our partnership with McDonald's Canada. There we have a million dollars that we're using over two years, allocating grants directly to growers who are implementing regenerative practices, as well as investing in research and really running trials so that we can test out how these practices actually work in region before we suggest them to the grower base.

Joanna Guza:
And what do you think the future of regenerative agriculture is specific to potatoes?

Elizabeth Shepherd:
I think there is a tremendous amount of progress being done. This is our first year with innovation hubs. And our innovation hubs really are commercial scale trials where growers in region are able to work with their agronomists to identify the issues that are important to them. We are trialing them in region so that neighbors can come over and say, you know, this is similar weather conditions, similar soil types, um, and able to actually see that practice being implemented. So I think there is a lot of momentum, a tremendous amount of potential, and we're just so proud of our growers. We've got some growers that are way far ahead, and we know that all of our growers are trialing different P practices. They are stewards of the land, and so we want to help them stay in potato.

Joanna Guza:
Well, Elizabeth, thank you for all that you guys are doing to support farmers to be doing regenerative practices and being a guest on our podcast. Today, we've been talking with Elizabeth Shepherd. She's the manager of integrated supply chain and agricultural Strategy at McCain Foods. If there's a topic you'd like to learn more about, send me an email at podcast at us, a online.org. Until next time, I'm Joanna Gza for Farm Food Facts.