80% of the crops that supply Unilever are already 100% sustainable

80% of the agricultural crops that supply Unilever are 100% sustainable, according to the company, which claims to have managed to help, protect and regenerate 0.1 million hectares of land, forests and oceans and maintains the goal of reaching 1.5 million by 2030.

The multinational food company Unilever, on the occasion of World Agriculture Day, has highlighted some of the advances in its new corporate strategy Compass. In this context, he stresses that it is essential to accelerate the transformation of regenerative agriculture that aims to restore and regenerate nature in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, return nutrients to the soil, reuse and recycle water, and increase living species.

Currently, 75% of the company’s global food supply comes from 12 crops, so efforts are focusing on them, which also form the basis of the main products and have the greatest impact, such as dairy, soybeans and vegetables. The countries and geographies where these crops are grown are also being prioritized in order to have the greatest impact in terms of supply chain carbon footprint.

In Spain, for example, in relation to the cultivation of tomatoes, the use of synthetic fertilizers has been considerably reduced in the more than 530 hectares that occupy the fields to reduce CO2 emissions and improve soil health, training more than 25 farmers thanks to the collaboration of Knorr with the tomato supplier Agraz. In addition to the use of organic fertilizers and more efficient irrigation systems, both companies have committed to improving the biodiversity of the land by planting native flora.

In the case of soybean cultivation, a program is being implemented that, once the crop has been harvested, keeps the roots alive in the soil, which significantly improves their health and soil biology, while preventing erosion and phosphorus runoff. As a result, a third of all the soybeans used in the United States to produce Hellmann’s mayonnaise comes from this project in which more than 360 farmers participate in the nearly 126,000 hectares it occupies.