Today, the National Geographic Society and PepsiCo announced a new, public-facing education and storytelling effort called Food for Tomorrow that will put regenerative farming in the spotlight — funding explorers, supporting applied science grants, and building an online mapping tool to show where regenerative practices are working. According to the National Geographic Society, the program will support five National Geographic Explorers to document and explain real farmer experiences, and it will fund science-driven projects that aim to scale nature-positive farming solutions.
The program is notable because it combines three things at once: high-quality storytelling, corporate reach, and science grants. PepsiCo brings access to global supply chains and farmer networks; National Geographic brings photographers, editors, and trust with audiences; and funded scientists will supply measurement and verification. Ramon Laguarta, PepsiCo’s CEO, framed the partnership as work to protect both farmers and the planet. According to PepsiCo, the company has already been scaling regenerative practices across its sourcing footprint and sees storytelling and science as tools to accelerate adoption.
Why Regenerative Agriculture Matters Now
The background to this push is urgent: soils and landscapes are under pressure globally, and many researchers warn that we cannot afford to let that continue. According to UNESCO, as much as 75–90% of the world’s land could face degradation by mid-century if current trends continue — an outcome that threatens food security, biodiversity and farmers’ livelihoods. This is the kind of problem regenerative practices aim to address by restoring soil health, increasing biodiversity on farms, and improving resilience to drought and floods.
What counts as “regenerative” varies, but it commonly includes keeping the soil covered, growing diverse rotations, using cover crops, reducing or eliminating tillage, integrating livestock, and rebuilding organic matter. Organisations studying these practices report potential co-benefits such as better water retention, improved nutrient cycling, and sometimes higher or more stable yields for farmers over time. A long-standing white paper from the Rodale Institute frames regenerative agriculture as a practical method to increase soil carbon and overall resilience. Their review of trials finds improvements in soil health and farm outcomes when practices are matched to local conditions. The paper suggests that regenerative systems can sequester carbon while maintaining or improving yields — but results depend on context and management.
At the same time, peer-reviewed research and scientific reviews are careful to point out limits and uncertainties. Some studies show modest greenhouse-gas benefits for particular practices and mixed results for carbon storage depending on soil type, climate and measurement timeframe. This makes the National Geographic–PepsiCo approach — pairing storytelling with funded, locally rooted science — an important test: can public education plus rigorous, on-the-ground measurement speed credible, scalable change?
On-the-ground stories and early results
One strength of the Food for Tomorrow program is that it will highlight real farmers and communities already experimenting with regenerative practices. National Geographic named Pablo Albarenga, Caitlin Ochs, Miora Rajaonary, John Stanmeyer, and Brent Stirton as Explorers who will document projects ranging from smallholder and Indigenous systems to Midwestern U.S. farms and the Sahel’s Great Green Wall. These are experienced journalists and photographers who will report on concrete places and people—not abstract ideas. The initial phase includes multimedia pieces and short films that capture farmers’ lived experiences.
Closer to the supply-chain work PepsiCo is funding, Practical Farmers of Iowa (PFI) and other local partners already provide farmer-led education, field days and trials that show how cover crops, diversified rotations and reduced tillage can rebuild soil in the U.S. Midwest. Farmers working with PFI have documented outcomes such as better water infiltration after heavy rains and more days suitable for fieldwork in seasons that used to be wetter or drier. Practical Farmers of Iowa’s farmer-led reports and field days are the exact kinds of practical resources the new partnership says it will amplify. According to Practical Farmers of Iowa, their network hosts hundreds of on-farm tests and peer learning events each year.
For a concrete company example: PepsiCo says it doubled its regenerative farming footprint to roughly 1.8 million acres in 2023 and has public goals to spread regenerative, restorative or protective practices across 10 million acres by 2030. PepsiCo is also collaborating with Cargill and local nonprofits (for example, in Iowa) to push regenerative practices across tens to hundreds of thousands of acres with local technical support and farmer incentive payments. These commercial programs aim to reduce risk for farmers adopting new practices by pairing agronomic guidance with financial help — a pattern that farmers in many regions say matters because transitions carry short-term costs and learning curves. According to PepsiCo, these partnerships include incentive structures and farmer support to help make the shift possible.
Experts and practitioners in the field offer careful optimism. Jim Andrew, PepsiCo’s Chief Sustainability Officer, has emphasised that partnership across the value chain is required to scale regenerative outcomes and that measurement, verification and farmer incentives are central to success. Pilar Cruz at Cargill has echoed this emphasis on practical, measurable results on the farm. These corporate voices matter — but so do farmers’ voices on the ground. For example, farmers featured in PFI stories such as Keith Gorham, who has applied regenerative practices on family acres since 2016, report goals that are practical and simple: reduce input costs, protect soil, and increase per-acre profitability. Their on-farm experience is the baseline that science and stories must reflect.
What Comes Next — Practical Steps for Farmers, Buyers and Readers
The program should be judged on three clear outcomes: whether it produces rigorous, locally relevant science; whether it materially helps farmers adopt practices (via training and incentives); and whether it improves measurable soil, biodiversity or farm resilience outcomes over time. National Geographic will be tracking stories, and PepsiCo has committed to sourcing and supply-chain shifts; measuring those outcomes will require transparent methods, independent verification and time. The National Geographic “Building Resilience in Agriculture” grants explicitly state that grantees will lead the science and that the Society and PepsiCo will not alter research findings — a small but important promise for credibility.
If you are a farmer reading this and want practical next steps, consider three modest, evidence-based moves that many farmers and farmer networks recommend: test cover crops on a portion of your land, attend a farmer-led field day to see local results, and ask your buyer or co-op what incentives exist for trialling regenerative practices. Organisations such as Practical Farmers of Iowa offer farmer-led trial templates and peer networks that reduce risk compared with going it alone. Their on-farm research and field days are designed specifically to help farmers make informed, practical changes.
If you are a buyer, retailer or consumer, push for three kinds of accountability: transparent measurement methods, long time horizons for soil and biodiversity outcomes (they don’t change overnight), and direct benefits to the farmers making the changes (training, technical assistance and fair purchasing terms). The new National Geographic–PepsiCo effort offers an advantage here: public storytelling and publicly funded science can make progress visible and hold partners to account — but only if methods and data are open and independently reviewed. According to National Geographic and PepsiCo announcements, these public-facing elements are part of the program’s design.
Finally, as a reader and voter, you can support policies and programs that help farmers make long-term investments in soil health (cost-share programs, payments for ecosystem services, and funding for farmer education). Science and storytelling will increase understanding, but farmers need predictable incentives and local technical support to take the necessary first steps.
Conclusion
This collaboration between a major global food company and a trusted storytelling institution is not the silver bullet for agriculture’s problems — there are real scientific uncertainties, and scaling good practices is always messy and local. But by combining rigorous grants, real farmer stories and public education, the National Geographic Society and PepsiCo have created a program that could help translate promising practices into real change — if the science remains independent, the farmer voices remain central, and outcomes are reported openly.
