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General Mills: Environmental Sustainability

Sustainable Agriculture

OverviewGeneral Mills has a long-standing commitment to minimize its impact on the environment by working closely with the agricultural community. Through its Green Giant brand, General Mills has practiced sustainable agriculture for more than a century, and research continues in earnest as the company develops and improves crop breeding and agronomic practices that benefit farmers and the environment. Higher yielding crops, reduced pesticide use and disease resistance are among the best practices that General Mills has shared with farmers around the world.

Minimizing our impact General Mills has a proud history of working closely with farmers to produce high-quality foods while minimizing its environmental footprint. The company’s Green Giant brand was an early adopter of crop rotation practices in the 1930s, and was among the earliest to use best-in-class pesticide management six decades ago.

General Mills’ research facility in Le Sueur, Minn. – the valley where Green Giant was created – develops and improves sustainable agricultural practices that are used globally. The facility’s library houses thousands of varieties of sweet corn, peas and green beans from the past 80 years. Company scientists are continually selecting and breeding desirable traits through natural methods to create the next generation of seed for farmers. Thousands of seeds are tested annually to find just one or two varieties to be introduced the following year.

Green Giant published a report in 1940 about the benefits of crop rotation in producing greater yields and increasing income for pea farmers. Another report in 1945 helped farmers reduce the number of insecticide applications by determining the most effective time to apply insecticide to control infestations from pea aphids.

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Developing standards for sustainable dairy

General Mills is a member of the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI) Platform, an organization founded by companies in the food industry to support the development of sustainable agriculture practices throughout the food chain. Representatives from General Mills actively participate in SAI’s Dairy working group, which collaborated with the International Dairy Federation to develop a common global carbon footprint approach for dairy. The methodology is now being incorporated into individual measurement systems globally by SAI members and the dairy sector. This work represents a significant step forward in the calculation of carbon footprint for the dairy sector. The group also is defining a list of key performance indicators to measure sustainability from an environmental, social and economic perspective at the dairy farm level.

General Mills: Agriculture

Green Giant agronomists also have developed best practices that minimize pesticide use through integrated pest management processes, reduced water consumption with more efficient irrigation systems, and yielded bigger crops without tilling more land. Green Giant has taken these best practices and improved varieties to many parts of the world, specifically sharing them with vegetable farmers in Mexico, asparagus growers in Peru, and sweet corn farmers in France and Canada.

Green Giant is the only sweet corn manufacturer in Europe to have earned ARVALIS – Institut du végétal certification for its efforts in reducing insecticide use and developing awareness and education concerning nitrogen fertilizer, water, and pesticide use in agriculture. Additionally, the Green Giant Seretram plant in Labatut, France, has been recognized for its outstanding agricultural practices.

During the past 35 years, improved hybrids through conventional breeding have more than doubled the yield of sweet corn on an acre of land and reduced pesticide use by 80 percent.

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General Mills: Agriculture

Protecting our futureBuilding on its strong legacy of developing and improving best practices in sustainable agriculture, General Mills has committed to advancing its commitment even further.

General Mills is helping the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) promote research on oats, an important crop that has been overlooked by researchers for decades. Research on oats has not kept pace with other food crops such as corn, soybeans, wheat and canola. A grant by General Mills to the USDA is funding the collaborative research of more than 30 scientists who are mapping specific genes in oats to help develop varieties with improved nutrition and resistance to drought and pests. General Mills’ investment triggered other groups to invest, bringing the total research funding to more than $1.8 million.

As a demonstrated leader in sustainable agriculture, General Mills is working closely with the Keystone Center’s Field to Market Initiative to develop best-in-class agricultural practices. The center uses science-based approaches to reach public policy recommendations and is focused on defining and measuring the sustainability of food production.

General Mills has launched a three-year pilot with 25 wheat growers in eastern Idaho to study the environmental impact of wheat production. Ultimately, the program will allow growers to share best practices in nutrient management, pest

management and other farming practices that will lead to a more environmentally sustainable and economical production of wheat.

A similar effort is under way in western Canada. General Mills is working with grower groups to study two decades of sustainability indicators - land use, soil loss, energy use and climate change - on eight different crops including wheat, oats, lentils, canola, peas and flax.

General Mills is also collaborating with the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment to map agricultural production and management practices worldwide. Known as the Global Landscapes Initiative, the project aims to provide agribusinesses, environmental groups, and others with information they can use to increase food production while reducing adverse environmental impacts of agriculture.

Ensuring a sustainable supply of vanillaThe vanilla plant is a labor-intensive crop that is grown only in a few, select corners of the world, by an increasingly smaller number of growers. At present, many of those growers are abandoning vanilla farming in favor of other crops that are less vulnerable to disease, severe weather and price fluctuations. General Mills is funding a $200,000 research project at the University of California-Davis to help steward the environmental and social sustainability of this fragile crop, and build a stable future for those who grow it. An international research team is mapping the genetic structure of the vanilla plant and laying the foundation for natural improvements – like disease-resistance and enhanced flavor – that will enable vanilla farmers to generate more income from a larger, more consistent and higher-quality crop.

Case studies

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Sustaining economic growth for farmers in China

Small farmers in the northeastern Chinese village of Yongqing have increased their household income two to four times since 2003 by growing corn for General Mills’ Bugles corn snacks. By contracting directly with General Mills, more than 750 farmer households receive seeds, other inputs, agronomic guidance, and two unique guarantees: a price that’s higher than the market price and a promise to buy their entire crop. Signs of the farmers’ higher standard of living are prominent, ranging from new housing to farm equipment to improved diets. During the past seven growing seasons, the amount of cultivated acreage has increased, and farmers speak of plans to cultivate more to sustain their income growth.

Reducing water usage

General Mills’ agricultural team has been working with local broccoli and cauliflower growers in Irapuato, Mexico, to encourage them to adopt a technology called drip irrigation that significantly reduces water usage. By directing water to drip slowly to the roots of the plants, drip irrigation uses 50 percent less water than the more conventional furrow irrigation. Drip irrigation is now being used in about 43 percent of the acreage. General Mills estimates that 1.1 billion gallons of water are saved annually. Drip irrigation also reduces the use of pesticides and improves yields, making it an effective, efficient and more environmentally friendly way to nourish crops. To encourage farmers to adopt drip irrigation, General Mills has provided farmers with interest-free loans to purchase equipment.

General Mills: Agriculture

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Case studies

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