ADM announced a partnership with Hill's Pet Nutrition to accelerate adoption of regenerative agriculture across corn and soybean acres in Illinois and Minnesota and to extend practices into Europe. The collaboration targets a wide swath of row-crop acres tied to the pet food ingredient supply chain, aiming to bring measurable environmental improvements at the field level. 16,000 acres in U.S.
Program goals and scope
The initiative is framed as a multiyear effort to improve soil and watershed health, increase biodiversity and strengthen farm operating resilience through on-farm changes that are verifiable. ADM and Hill's say the program will focus on outcomes such as reduced carbon intensity, lower soil erosion and improved water quality while maintaining ingredient quality for pet-food formulations. Participating growers will be encouraged to adopt practices that deliver those outcomes at the field scale.
Farmers will be offered financial incentives tied to adoption and measurable results, with payments intended to offset implementation costs and reward positive environmental impacts. The program highlights tools like fertilizer efficiency programs, cover crops and companion cropping as candidate practices, with incentives linked to tracked indicators rather than simple practice adoption. ADM will coordinate technical assistance and data services to ensure outcomes can be monitored and reported.
Farmer support and verification
Grower support will include technical guidance, peer networking and field-level education delivered through ADM's network of implementation and data partners, plus on-farm monitoring to verify results. Farmers receive measurable incentives for reported improvements, and the initiative emphasizes field monitoring and outcome reporting to validate environmental and economic impacts. ADM will manage data collection and verification to ensure incentive payments correspond to documented changes.
For its European operations, ADM identified Hungary as a sourcing origin for soy that supplies downstream plants in Straubing and Mainz via the Danube and Rhine river system, and the partnership will enroll soybean acres there as part of the program. 2,500 acres in Hungary are included in the pilot scope to test approaches outside the U.S. and to align sourcing with verified regenerative practices at origin.
Hill's framed the effort as an extension of its science-led approach to nutrition, saying ingredient quality begins in the soil. ADM described the partnership as a way to meet growing consumer interest in sustainably sourced ingredients while providing farmers with incentives and the technical tools to implement measurable conservation practices. The companies said the program will roll out across the enrolled acres with ongoing data-driven monitoring and reporting to track environmental outcomes and payments to participating producers.
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