PepsiCo Offers Farmers Support for Sustainable Agriculture

PepsiCo, one of the world's largest agricultural enterprises, continues its operations with a vision of agricultural and environmental sustainability. Through farming practices it has implemented, the company provides farmers with productivity increases in many areas and contributes to the employment of over 40,000 people indirectly in Turkey. Within the scope of Positive Agriculture targets, PepsiCo aims to expand regenerative farming practices to 28.3 million hectares equivalent to its entire agricultural footprint by 2030 and aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 3 million tonnes. On the occasion of World Farmers Day on 14 May, PepsiCo Turkey General Manager Ece Aksel made the following remarks: "We celebrate World Farmers Day on 14 May with our farmers who have a laborious but equally respected profession. As a company with a voice in the agriculture sector, which is critical for our country as it is for the entire world, we will continue to support this sector and our farmers and grow together with them. We work to provide every kind of support to our farmers to increase product yield and resource efficiency so they can receive the full value of their labour.

On the other hand, protecting our world and soil is our most important responsibility. We will fulfil this responsibility by spreading regenerative farming activities and creating a sustainable ecosystem," he said.

PepsiCo enables potato and corn production on a total of 10,000 hectares in Turkey and carries out 60% of the country's chip-grade potato production through contractual farming with hundreds of farmers in 20 provinces. Lay's and Ruffles brands are produced 100% in Turkey with potatoes grown by Turkish farmers. Having signed numerous projects in Turkey operations with Positive Agriculture approaches, PepsiCo, working together with farmers, expanded drip irrigation and mini-sprinkler systems and a technology called i-Crop, reducing water use by 45%, increasing crop yield and achieving approximately 13 million tonnes of water savings. By 2030, PepsiCo aims to improve the livelihoods of over 250,000 people in PepsiCo's agricultural supply chain and communities, including the economic empowerment of women. To reach this goal, the company will focus on the most vulnerable farming communities in the global value chain, including small landholding farmers and farm workers, women in farming communities and minority farmers. It will continue to advance this purpose through various partnerships.

PepsiCo sources products from 60 countries and supports over 100,000 jobs in the agricultural supply chain. Globally, it obtains 86% of its direct crops such as potatoes, corn, oats and oranges from sustainable sources. Under Positive Agriculture, the company aims to source 100% of its key ingredients, including not only the products it directly sources but also vegetable oils and grains obtained from third parties, sustainably by 2030.

With the Positive Agriculture targets it has set, PepsiCo will continue to advance the approximately ten years of progress it has made so far with the Sustainable Farming Programme (SFP) and continue working with farmers in 60 countries to adopt "regenerative agriculture"; that is, farming practices that build resilience and improve and restore ecosystems. Naturalis, an organo-mineral fertiliser developed and patented for the first time by PepsiCo Turkey, is obtained from organic waste from food factories. Under a process where organic waste is converted to methane gas and used as electrical and heat energy, 35% of food factories' energy is covered this way. The remaining organic residues are enriched with minerals and converted to organo-mineral fertiliser, which is used in potato fields planted by PepsiCo. In this way, the chemical ratio in the fertiliser is reduced by 40% compared to normal fertilisers.