When Michael Warmington talks about regenerative agriculture, he avoids technical language. Rather, the Nestlé UK & Ireland regeneration lead describes it simply as “more nature friendly farming”.

At the centre of that idea is soil.

“We’re trying to work with nature rather than against nature,” he says. “We’re trying to regenerate the soil. If we can do that successfully, we can continue to grow all the crops and the nutrition that we need.”

For Nestlé, the issue is both environmental and also increasingly commercial. Climate shocks, volatile fertiliser prices and global instability are putting pressure on agricultural supply chains across Europe. Companies reliant on wheat, milk, sugar and cereals are now under pressure to secure long-term resilience as well as cut emissions.

Nestlé says nearly two-thirds of its greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture and land use change outside its direct operations. The company has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030 compared with 2018 levels and sourcing 50% of key ingredients from farms adopting regenerative agriculture practices by 2030.

That strategy is now shaping partnerships across the UK and Europe, including Nestlé’s recently announced four-year partnership with Soil Capital, which supports farmers in France, Belgium and the UK with agronomic advice, carbon measurement tools and financial incentives linked to verified environmental outcomes.

Warmington says the project is one of several Nestlé initiatives aimed at transforming agricultural supply chains at scale.

Paying farmers to rebuild soil

The Soil Capital partnership focuses on wheat, corn, barley and sugar beet, all major ingredients within Nestlé’s European supply chain. Participating farmers are rewarded financially for adopting regenerative farming practices across their land.

“The Soil Capital project specifically takes a whole farm approach,” Warmington says. Practices include reducing tillage, planting cover crops and keeping living roots in the soil throughout the year. The aim is to improve soil structure, increase biodiversity and capture more carbon in the ground.

“Every time you disturb soil, you’re breaking down the organic matter and the life of the soil,” he says.

Under the scheme, it is understood farmers receive payments linked to the amount of carbon sequestered on their farms. Soil Capital uses metrics such as monitoring, reporting and verification systems, alongside satellite data and field-level measurements, to model the environmental impact of farming changes.

The programme also builds on a 2023 wheat and corn pilot in France and now covers nearly 230 farmers across 13,000 hectares in France, Belgium and the UK. Earlier this year, Nestlé said the partnership would support sourcing resilience while also helping to reduce Scope 3 emissions across its supply chain.

Warmington argues the model matters because farmers are facing growing financial pressure from global instability and commodity volatility.

“What we see is growers in our supply chain being squeezed by big global shocks and stresses,” he says. “Whether it’s fertiliser prices going up or grain prices coming down, all these things put pressure on farmers and threaten the long-term resilience of British agriculture.”

He says regenerative farming can help reduce dependence on expensive external inputs such as fertiliser, especially during periods of disruption linked to global conflicts and shipping instability around routes such as the Strait of Hormuz.

“If you don’t need to use quite as much fertiliser as you used to, then that’s a massive boost to resilience,” he says.

Nestlé is also backing the Landscape Enterprise Networks initiative, known as LENs, which recently received a King’s Award for Enterprise for sustainable development. The project rewards farmers for delivering environmental improvements across landscapes and ecosystems.

For Warmington, success is not just about emissions targets.

“We want to make sure farmers are more resilient financially as well as resilient to changes in climate,” he says.

The Milk Plan and the methane debate

Nestlé points to its long-running Milk Plan as one of its strongest examples of regenerative farming in practice.

The programme, run alongside dairy co-operative First Milk, works with farmers in Cumbria and Ayrshire supplying fresh milk into Nestlé’s confectionery and coffee supply chains. According to Warmington, all milk sourced through the programme now comes from farms practising regenerative agriculture.

The company says Milk Plan farmers have planted more than 20,000 trees and over 42 kilometres of hedgerows. Nestlé also says 3,500 trees and 20 miles of hedgerow were planted in 2024 alone.

Speaking about the progress from the scheme, Warmington shares he recently visited a participating farm near Appleby in Cumbria.

“You can literally see the impact with your eyes,” he says. “You dig up a spoonful of soil and see all the life in it,” adding that hedgerows are one of the healthiest ecosystems on farms.

“The healthiest soil you’ll get on a farm is under a hedgerow,” he says. “It’s full of worms, beneficial insects and biodiversity.”

Nestlé says the programme has already delivered its 2030 regenerative agriculture target within that milk supply chain, and the company has also launched a plan with First Milk to halve carbon emissions by 2026.

But Nestlé continues to face criticism from climate campaigners over methane emissions linked to dairy production. Earlier this year, the Changing Markets Foundation accused the company of lagging behind competitors such as Danone on methane reduction targets, slamming the inaction as ‘Nestlé’s methane blindspot’.

However, Warmington response is that Nestlé’s current approach focuses on reducing overall greenhouse gas emissions rather than targeting methane in isolation.

“Our goal is around GHG reductions,” he says. “Carbon is one, methane is one, nitrogen is another.”

Rather than relying on feed additives designed to suppress methane emissions from cows, Warmington says Nestlé has prioritised regenerative dairy farming and soil carbon sequestration.

“We work with First Milk and they don’t use artificial feed supplements,” he says. “We’re supporting them on regenerative practices and sequestering carbon in the soil.”

According to Warmington, recent soil measurements from participating farms have produced encouraging results.

“One of the farms is nearly net zero just from how much carbon has been sequestered into the soil,” he says.

Satellites, soil samples and AI

Technology is becoming increasingly central to how food manufacturers measure sustainability claims.

Nestlé’s programmes use thousands of soil samples, carbon modelling systems and satellite monitoring to track whether regenerative practices are actually improving soil health and reducing emissions.

“If a farmer reduces tillage or plants a cover crop, the models and technology help us project what the climate impact is,” Warmington says.

Satellite imagery is also used to monitor field activity remotely, including whether land has been ploughed.

“Rather than sending someone out to a farm every year, satellite data can do that for you,” he says.

Nestlé is also exploring the role artificial intelligence could play in future agricultural monitoring.

Warmington says some technology partners are already using AI systems capable of monitoring biodiversity by analysing bird song recordings on farms.

“We’ve got partners who use AI to monitor bird life on farm,” he says. “AI models listen to the bird life and tell you what biodiversity improvements you have.”

Nestlé says it is continuing to expand regenerative agriculture projects across dairy, wheat and sugar supply chains in the UK and Ireland, with several new initiatives currently in development.

For Warmington, the long-term challenge is balancing climate action with commercial resilience.

“It’s about creating a more secure, resilient supply chain that works for us as well as the farmers,” he says.

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