FAIRR’s new analysis finds a credibility gap between grand promises about regenerative agriculture and what the biggest food companies actually deliver. The group assessed 78 public agri-food firms and found some genuine governance work, but also a pattern of dropped pledges, weak targets and patchy measurement. The result is a lot of noise and not enough verifiable progress on the ground.
The report calls out a slide in measurable ambition: quantified regenerative agriculture targets dropped from 35% of companies in 2023 to 28% this cycle. That retreat matters because vague pledges are easy to make and hard to verify. Investors and the public are left guessing how much real change is happening across supplier networks.
Worse, FAIRR found that no company has set a clear pesticide reduction target inside their regenerative programmes. Against a backdrop where many firms list lowering agrochemical inputs as an aim, the absence of an explicit pesticide goal is a glaring contradiction. Without that baseline, claims about restoring soil and biodiversity look thin and untested.
Only a tiny share of firms have outcome-based targets tied to measurable impacts — just 4% — even though more than half now say they measure regenerative outcomes. That gap between measurement and meaningful targets is the central problem. Counting activity is not the same as reporting impact at scale.
FAIRR said more than half of companies identify reducing agrochemical inputs as a goal, yet “many of the most widely deployed regenerative agriculture practices can still rely on herbicides in implementation”, adding: “Despite this, no company has set a pesticide reduction target.”
The analysis names only Conagra Brands, Danone, Nestlé and Sysco as firms that are tracking herbicide use as part of their regenerative programmes. Those four stand out for linking a concrete input to their practices, but they are the exceptions, not the rule. For most, reporting stays at the project level, which makes it hard to judge company-wide impact.
FAIRR’s María Montosa Ródenas said: “Regenerative agriculture has real potential to help agri-food companies build resilience against climate and nature-related risks. But potential is not the same as progress. “Our research shows that corporate strategies remain fragmented and under-resourced. The pesticide contradiction at the heart of many programmes is particularly striking: companies cannot credibly claim to be restoring nature while deploying practices that undermine that goal. Investors need to push for outcome-based targets and company-wide reporting, or the regenerative agriculture opportunity will remain largely unrealised.”
There are signs of movement. The share of companies that report measuring regenerative outcomes rose from 16% in 2023 to 54% in 2026, and more businesses are tying regenerative work to Scope 3 emissions strategies. FAIRR found 52% of firms now make some qualitative or quantitative link between regenerative practices and Scope 3, up from 24% three years ago. Still, most of this measurement is limited to pilot projects rather than standard, company-wide systems.
The researchers also noted that regenerative initiatives are often long-term and tricky to quantify, yet they flagged examples where clarity meets action. They pointed to General Mills’ “clarity” on the scope of its programme and PepsiCo’s outcome-based farmer payment schemes as “examples of companies building credibility and trust on some aspects of their initiatives”. Those examples matter because they show how outcomes and incentives can be tied to real changes in farming practices.
Arthur van Mansvelt of Achmea Investment Management, a member of FAIRR, added: “Many agri-food businesses present regenerative agriculture as a silver bullet to meet climate and nature goals. But, as investors, we are still struggling to assess the credibility of initiatives. We need to have clarity on how companies use regenerative agriculture to contribute to achieving global nature goals.”
