Target 2.4: Sustainable food production and resilient agriculture
By 2030, ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, that help maintain ecosystems, that strengthen capacity for adaptation to climate change, extreme weather, drought, flooding and other disasters and that progressively improve land and soil quality
Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
Why shareholder democracy is necessary
In industrial commodity chains, production practices are set by agribusiness, traders and food manufacturers through sourcing standards. Owners have delivered change directly. A 2021 Green Century proposal asking Bunge to eliminate native-vegetation conversion in its soy supply chain won 98 percent support. It was followed by 100 percent geospatial monitoring and stronger disclosure commitments in 2024. As You Sow's 2026 PepsiCo proposal on pesticide data in its regenerative-agriculture program was withdrawn after agreement. The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility and Ceres also organized 45 investors managing 1.2 trillion dollars to press Cargill, JBS, Perdue, Smithfield and other meat producers for water stewardship policies covering manure handling and fertilizer runoff. Corporate lobbying obstructs the policy side. InfluenceMap found EU meat and dairy producers and associations including Copa-Cogeca weakened two and stalled three of six agricultural climate policies, with no assessed producer aligned with IPCC science. The target covers global food production, however. There, hundreds of millions of smallholders, public subsidy design and state extension services determine most outcomes. Subsidy design includes the CAP, the US farm bill and Indian and Chinese input subsidies. Owners supply a necessary input and remove a documented obstacle in industrial chains. They cannot deliver most of the result on their own, so governments must also act.
How this was scoredNecessary
Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
- Bunge to Strengthen No-Deforestation Efforts in the Amazon, Cerrado, Green Century Funds, 2024-04-29
- The Meat and Dairy Industry Lobbying That Is Pressing Pause on Climate Legislation in the EU, InfluenceMap, 2024-05-29
- PepsiCo Inc: Disclosure of Regenerative Agriculture Outcomes, As You Sow, 2025-11-21
- Leading Investors Press Meat Producers to Tackle Water Pollution Risks, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, 2016-11-21
What civil society organizations are helping owners on this
Coordinated with Ceres a 2016 letter from 45 investors managing 1.2 trillion dollars asking Cargill, JBS, Perdue and Smithfield to adopt water stewardship policies covering manure management and fertilizer runoff.
Co-coordinated the 2016 investor letters to meat producers on agricultural water pollution.
Files proposals on deforestation and nature risk in agricultural supply chains, including the 2021 Bunge soy proposal and a PepsiCo biodiversity proposal withdrawn in 2026 after agreement.
Files proposals asking food companies to disclose pesticide use reductions achieved through their regenerative agriculture programs.
4 campaigns on record
Disclose the risks and impacts on nature of the company's operations and agricultural sourcing.
With Achmea Investment Management, Allianz Global Investors
Result: Withdrawn after agreement
PepsiCo agreed to publicly describe its process for identifying and reducing its impacts on nature and biodiversity, with the disclosure to be posted by May 1, 2026.
Issue a report disclosing if and how the company can incorporate pesticide use data in its regenerative agriculture program disclosures.
Result: Withdrawn after agreement
Eliminate the use of glyphosate as a pre-harvest drying (desiccant) agent on wheat and oats in Kellogg's supply chain.
Result: withdrawn after company agreement Resolutions were filed in both 2017 and 2020 and were resolved by a negotiated company commitment rather than a vote.
Kellogg committed to phase out pre-harvest glyphosate use in its wheat and oat supply chains by the end of 2025.
Kellogg works with suppliers to phase out controversial glyphosate, Supply Chain Dive
Develop comprehensive water stewardship policies covering permitted releases to waterways, safe storage and management of animal waste, and fertilizer runoff from feed production.
With ACTIAM, Tri-State Coalition for Responsible Investment, Christian Brothers Investment Services
Result: not stated in source
Related subjects on other maps
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is UN Sustainable Development Goals's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.