Regenerative agriculture and sustainability, both of which align with McCain’s Regenerative Agriculture Framework, are hot topics in the potato-growing industry.

The ability of the potato growers to manage not only financially but environmentally is crucial to the company he represents, according to Daniel Metheringham, Vice-President of Agriculture at McCain Foods.

“Whether it’s enhancing crop diversity, looking at ecosystems, or most importantly armoring the soils. The soils are the lifeblood of growing potatoes, or growing all of our crops. So really protecting those soils
and then we’re looking at technology,” Metheringham declared, cited by Pembina Valley.

With its Farms of the Future project, the first of which is situated in McCain’s hometown of Florenceville, New Brunswick, McCain is testing regenerative agriculture’s practices and principles and experimenting with new machinery and technology to ensure that it is both technically feasible and economically viable for farmers.

McCain has disclosed that it is collaborating with Farm Credit Canada to provide financial incentives to growers that participate in McCain’s Regenerative Agriculture Framework.

Customers who are also McCain suppliers may be eligible to earn an incentive payment through FCC’s Sustainability Incentive Program for their agricultural sustainability efforts.

Up to a maximum payment of USD2,000 per year, the calculation will be based on a portion of their total debt for eligible lending with FCC.

Depending on where growers are in McCain’s Regenerative Agricultural Framework, additional incentives are available.

According to McCain, farmers at the “Onboarding” level of the Framework will receive matching funds, and for farmers at the “Beginner” level, McCain will match USD2 for every dollar received from the FCC.

The incentive from McCain increases as farmers progress through the framework to the Master and Expert levels.

The incentive offered at these levels is roughly equal to interest-free financing (assuming up to USD400,000 at 4%) to a maximum payment of USD14,000 from McCain and USD2,000 from FCC.