Agriculture

Smithfield Foods, Inc. is pleased to announced that Chris Lahti, vice president of distribution, has been named a “Rock Star of the Supply Chain” by Food Logistics magazine. The award recognizes champions in the global food and beverage supply chain industry whose achievements, hard work, and vision have shaped and attained milestones in safety, efficiency, productivity, and innovation. Lahti received this honor for his efforts and his team’s role in supply chain consolidation initiatives within the company, which resulted in significant operational, sustainability, and economic benefits.

Fair Trade USA, the leading certifier of Fair Trade products in North America, in collaboration with the Sustainable Coffee Challenge, announces a group of joint commitments with major partners deeply committed to sustainable coffee sourcing and improved farmer livelihoods. This announcement from Target, Chartwells Higher Ed, UCLA, Bon Appetit Management Company, Atlas Coffee Roasters, and the Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council comes at a pivotal moment for coffee farmers around the world who have been struggling with low C-Market prices. The unstable coffee market has millions of producers looking for the price assurances and community development funds provided by the Fair Trade model.

Seen from above, the arid, inhospitable landscape stretches as far as the eye can see, the great swathes of sand interspersed only with the occasional palm tree and small rural community. Kebili, an oasis in this desert, is one such town. Located in south-west Tunisia, it is one of the hottest places on earth and prone to both extreme drought and devastating floods. In 2015, CNH Industrial embarked on an ambitious, three-year, water-management project aimed at helping build and repair traditional water-collection systems, improve agricultural practices and train farmers in the area.

Find out how successful the project was in the latest Behind the Wheel webisode.

Smithfield Foods, Inc. is pleased to announce that it has successfully engaged 80 percent of its grain supply chain, which is used to feed the company’s hogs, in farming practices that are both sustainable and reduce the cost of production for grain farmers. This exceeded the company’s original goal of 75 percent. In 2018, Smithfield purchased grain from producers who use efficient fertilizer and soil health methods across approximately 560,000 acres of land.

Beyond its critical role in food safety, traceability is also becoming increasingly important to meet consumer demand for more healthy food choices produced in ways less harmful to people and the environment. For consumers, traceability adds a layer of credibility to claims like non-GMO, organic, free range or “sustainably sourced.”

The demand for organic foods continues to increase at astounding rates. While U.S. sales of organic food and beverages totaled less than $4 billion in 1997, that number is anticipated to hit more than $100 billion by 2025.

A Global Journey - CNH Industrial is a global leader in the capital goods sector that, through its various businesses, designs, produces and sells agricultural and construction equipment, trucks, commercial vehicles, buses and specialty vehicles, in addition to a broad portfolio of powertrain applications. Join CNH Industrial on a global whistle-stop journey and take in some of the applications, environments and countries in which CNH Industrial works.

We live in a changing world and farming is changing with it. Our growing population and a greater environmental awareness means farmers need to produce more food more sustainably from the same amount of land. It’s ultimately technology that will make the difference – and CNH Industrial is at the forefront of this change. We set out to take technology in a different direction that would allow farmers to integrate new technology into existing fleets and give them access to real time data wherever they are.

The world is facing an energy crisis. Concerns over pollution and climate change, issues surrounding energy supply and consumption are growing. And with an increasing world population, the amount of energy we need has doubled in the last 40 years. Record use of irreplaceable fossil fuels and commitments to reduce the environmental impact of our energy demands mean the development of renewable sources of power such as wind, solar and hydroelectric are accelerating. CNH Industrial is at the forefront of alternative fuel developments, with the most extensive range of vehicles available, with power sources including liquefied natural gas, compressed natural gas and electric-hybrid solutions, developed by our powertrain brand, FPT Industrial, which has now manufactured 30,000 natural gas engine

Volcom, in partnership with the social enterprise CottonConnect, is launching Farm to Yarn – a socially conscious raw materials initiative in India that features certified organic cotton that’s traceable back to the program’s farmers and that provides social and professional education programs for the farmers and the women in the farming villages of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, where the cotton was sourced.