Industrial agriculture applies over one billion pounds of synthetic pesticides annually to farms, directly threatening the resilience and yield stability of agricultural supply chains.[1],[2] Pesticides decrease soil fertility by killing soil microorganisms vital for nutrient, water, and soil retention. Soil degradation and erosion reduce food security, imposing an estimated loss of $8 billion annually to global GDP.[3] These losses become more material as climate change increases the frequency, and impact to global food companies, of droughts, floods, storms, and heatwaves.

Agricultural pesticide use can also cause long-term health impacts to farmworkers and fenceline communities, including asthma, cancer, and birth defects, among others, while also resulting in the acute poisoning of 25 million farm workers annually.[4] Further, use of pesticides directly harms biodiversity, including pollinators critical to 35% of crop production, and contributes to air and water pollution.[5]

In contrast, regenerative agriculture is a farming system that reduces mass use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, and includes reduced tillage, crop rotation, cover cropping, and natural pest management. These practices, used together, preserve soil health and retain topsoil, while reducing impacts to humans and the environment.[6]

The Rodale Institute reports that regenerative agriculture can sequester more carbon annually than is emitted.[7] Failure to address pesticide dependency, however, diminishes regenerative farming’s potential to sequester carbon and deliver measurable climate and financial returns.[8],[9],[10]

In Hershey’s 2023 ESG report, the company states that it is promoting regenerative agricultural practices in its sugar supply chain, such as use of cover crops and reduced tillage, as part of its climate action plan. However, the company does not identify pesticide reduction as a component of its regenerative program for achieving positive soil sequestration and climate outcomes. The company’s failure to incorporate an essential component of regenerative farming -- pesticide reduction -- represents an important blind spot for the company and raises the potential for claims of greenwashing.

In contrast, Hershey’s peers, Lamb Weston, Conagra, and McCain Foods, publicly measure and report pesticide reduction within their regenerative agriculture programs to demonstrate progress and accountability.[11]

In a competitive marketplace that increasingly demands clean food, greenhouse gas reductions, and reduced human and environmental harm, significantly reducing pesticide use as part of a successful regenerative agriculture program can reduce risk for shareholders and our Company, while minimizing harm to stakeholders and ecosystems.

[1] https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-019-0488-0

[2]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2984095/#:~:text=Heavy%20treatment%20of%20soil%20with,fungi%2C%20then%20the%20soil%20degrades

[3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837718319343

[4] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2946087/

[5] https://newsarchive.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2006/10/25_pollinator.shtml

[6] https://regenerationinternational.org/why-regenerative-agriculture/

[7] https://rodaleinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/rodale-white-paper.pdf

[8] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2984095

[9] https://www.csuchico.edu/regenerativeagriculture/blog/soil-microbes-carbon-sequestration.shtml

[10] https://soilhealthinstitute.org/news-events/nationwide-study-on-30-u-s-farms-shows-positive-economic-impact-of-soil-health-management-systems/

[11] https://www.lambweston.com/content/dam/lamb-weston/website/en-us/pdf/sustainability/LambWeston_2023_ESG.pdf, p.43; https://www.conagrabrands.com/citizenship-reports/conagra-brands-citizenship-report-2023, p.21; https://www.mccain.com/media/4594/mccain_regenag_framework_2024.pdf.