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Arva, Nestlé Purina, Riceland Sustainable Rice Program
The Nestlé Purina Riceland Sustainable Rice Program, in partnership with Arva Intelligence, rewards farmers for implementing sustainable farming practices in rice cultivation. The program focuses on achieving Scope 3 GHG emission reductions and water savings. Arva’s CropForce AI platform provides agronomic optimization insights and measurement, monitoring, verification, and reporting (MMRV) of GHG emission reductions and removals from regenerative practices. Through the Arva Riceland Carbon Ready services farmers can quantify the benefit of implementing regenerative practices that lead to profitable sustainability. Nestlé Purina is committed to working with its suppliers to achieve a sustainable farming future and has pledged to achieve net zero GHG emission by 2050. Riceland, a farmer-owned cooperative established in 1921, has been a trusted supplier of rice products to Nestlé Purina for over 50 years. Through this program, Riceland delivered over 14,000 CO2e tonnes of Scope 3 emission reduction benefits and 3 billion gallons of water savings to Nestlé Purina in 2022.
Active
Incubation
Engagement Targets
Notes: (1) Minor fluctuations in the number of retained growers is expected from year to year. These fluctuations may be due to year-over-year crop rotation effects or other factors beyond the control of the project. Enrolled acres represent the total number of acres on an individual farm in a specific year. The ability to report enrolled acres is based on the Fieldprint Project Standard requirement that individual growers enrolled in projects enter at least 10% of the acres managed for a specific crop. (2) Entered acres represent the actual number of enrolled acres for which data is entered in the Fieldprint Platform for analysis.
Objectives
Continued Sustainable Rice Efforts
This project was initiated in 2022 with 25 Riceland growers. The project will run through 2026, with a goal to enroll an additional 200 growers into the program and to enroll in excess of 100,000 acres by the end of project.
In 2023, the Arva, Nestlé Purina, Riceland Sustainable Rice Project saw great headway towards our goal of increasing both grower enrollment and acreage in the project. In 2022, the project had 23 unique farmers that covered just over 10,000 acres. In 2023, grower enrollment tripled to 69 unique growers spanning nearly 50,000 acres. The project continues to garner positive interest from rice growers in the area and has great potential to scale. Further engagement can be achieved by encouraging farmers to adopt regenerative practices, and Arva and Riceland intend to be key partners to Nestlé in order to continue supporting their commitment to resilient landscapes and communities by assisting with farmer outreach, training, and data-backed management plans and incentives.
Scope 3 GHG Emission Reductions
A major focus of the program is achieving Scope 3 GHG emission reductions. Arva's CropForce Al platform provides agronomic optimization insights, as well as measurement, monitoring, verification, and reporting (MMRV) of GHG emission reductions and removals from regenerative practices. Through the Arva Riceland Carbon Ready services, farmers can quantify the benefit of implementing regenerative practices that lead to profitable sustainability. Nestlé Purina is committed to working with its suppliers to achieve a sustainable farming future and has pledged to achieve net zero GHG emission by 2050. In year one of the project, Riceland delivered over 14,000 CO2e tonnes of Scope 3 emission reduction benefits.
Arva is committed to an accurate and transparent approach to carbon quantification, helping Purina get access to primary data within its supply sheds and helping farmers advance on their sustainability journeys. In 2022, the project delivered over 14,000 CO2e tonnes of Scope 3 emission reduction benefits.
In 2023, the project delivered nearly 63,000 CO2e tonnes of total GHG emission reductions and removals (86% were emission reductions).
Reduction practices included crop rotation and nutrient management, such as the use of a nutrient management plan (NMP), nitrogen inhibitor, split application, and/or variable rate technology (VRT). Water management and field preparation consisted of multiple inlet rice irrigation (MIRI), alternate wetting and drying (AWD), zero-grade fields, furrow irrigation, cascade irrigation, and surface flooding.
Improve Water Savings
Supporting Nestlé Purina’s commitment to resilient landscapes and communities, this project has delivered project co-benefits in the form of water savings and supporting local waterfowl habitats. In the first year of the project (2022), the project delivered 3 billion gallons of water savings to Nestlé Purina.
In 2023, the project saved 10.4 billion gallons of water through improved water management practices and supported 29,882 acres of waterfowl habitat as project co-benefits. A key part of the Arva-Nestlé Purina project success was community engagement through transformational collaboration with Riceland’s farmer-member network.
Participants
Project Lead Organization
Arva Intelligence CorpFull
Riceland FoodsFull
Nestle Purina PetCare CompanyFull
Project Details
Status
Active
Pathway
Incubation
Primary Crops
Rice
Natural Resource Concern