Walmart's 'Regenerative Foodscape' - Civil Eats

There’s no evidence Walmart’s headed in that direction. Since 2010, the company has made at least five different public commitments related to ending deforestation in different parts of its soy and beef supply chains. To date there is no public evidence the company is close to delivering, and the commitments always rely on voluntary reporting by suppliers.

At the same time, ZomaLab, Ben Walton’s private wealth management firm with his wife Lucy Ana, supports an initiative called Enduring Earth. It funds one project that involves governments and non-profits working together to conserve an area of the Amazon Rainforest that’s nearly twice the size of Germany. A representative from ZomaLab declined an interview request and the opportunity to answer emailed questions from Civil Eats related to deforestation in Walmart’s supply chains and the family’s ability to improve the company’s supply chains.

A Fortune’s Impacts

First, as with organic, the Waltons could play a pivotal role in defining “regenerative,” establishing regenerative markets that fit Walmart’s vision of a low-cost-first food system. Their philanthropy is already moving things in that direction.

For instance, many of the Walton Family Foundation’s most significant grants to agriculture groups in 2021 focused on implementing practices like cover crops and no-till farming on commodity crop acres. Those include $1.65 million to EDF, $375,000 to Field to Market, $210,000 to the Soil Health Institute, and $300,000 to the American Soybean Association.

That’s a good thing, said Johnathan Hladik, the policy director at the Center for Rural Affairs, which got $125,000 in 2021 to fund work on conservation programs and water quality in Midwest ag states. “When we write these grants, we intentionally propose projects that target the mainstream row crop production system,” Hladik said, because of the scale at which corn and soy are grown. “If you can grow conservation programs that will incentivize those producers to implement . . . some regenerative practices, even if they’re not going all the way, and you scale that over 300 million acres, that’s tremendous. You can make such a big impact.”

Also in 2021, the foundation gave $325,000 to the Environmental Working Group (EWG). That money represents long-running Walton support for the organization’s conservation and crop insurance databases and the analyses that emerge from them, explained Scott Faber, the organization’s senior vice president of government affairs. EWG’s database has long been the only source of data for researchers and journalists looking to understand how the federal government spends money intended to improve environmental outcomes on farms.

In the past few months, for example, EWG has used the data to show only a small percentage of one popular program’s funding goes to practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and that a third of taxpayer crop insurance dollars in the last ten years have gone to companies, not farmers.

The Walton Family Foundation declined to provide an interview for this story or to answer detailed questions about these and other investments in regenerative agriculture. Instead, foundation spokesperson Daphne Moore pointed to progressive projects funding the planting of native prairie strips and the perennial grain Kernza and provided a broad statement, saying, “We are proud of our work providing significant resources to organizations on the frontlines of the fight to develop more sustainable water practices, adapt to the threat of climate change, and preserve the Colorado and Mississippi Rivers for generations to come.”

Those practices represent real improvements that benefit soil health and water quality. But LeZaks, of Food System 6, said they do it within the same system designed to produce few healthy foods while extracting resources from rural land and communities and pushing the profits toward large corporations. LeZaks and others would like to see the term “regenerative” applied to systems that diversify landscapes for health and climate resilience while also restoring regional food economies.

At Builders Vision, the leadership team is similarly working on what will likely be a more expansive definition of “regenerative.” Builders Vision is Lukas Walton’s “family office,” a quaint term for a financial firm that manages the wealth of one of the richest people in the world. It includes both investment and philanthropic initiatives.

“When I think about regenerative practices, I think about no-till, crop rotation, and cover cropping as kind of the three main pillars,” said Sara Balawajder, a VP who manages sustainable food and agriculture investments at Builders Vision. “And then we have started to think more about the role of livestock and agroforestry in regenerative systems.”

In addition to funding plant-based alternatives to meat and dairy, health- and climate-forward restaurants, and tech-leaning agricultural companies, Builders Vision funds enterprises that could move agriculture toward a more transformative version of regenerative.

Through its $2 billion investment firm S2G Ventures, those include Virginia-based Farmer Focus, which helps farmers raise chickens on pasture; Maple Hill Creamery, a pioneering dairy company that has helped more than 100 Northeast farms transition to grass-fed production; and FoodID, a test to reign in harmful antibiotic use in animal agriculture.

Builders Initiative, the office’s philanthropic arm, has given nearly $180 million to food and agriculture grantees since its founding, including a heralded regenerative chicken project in the Midwest and a research project using new technology to map the location of CAFOs to better regulate their environmental impacts.

These initiatives may lead to real change. But, according to some advocates, they could also contribute to a second outcome: The deployment of the Waltons’ vast fortune across millions of farmland acres, ocean ecosystems, and food production spaces could boost the regenerative image that Walmart presents as a company while obscuring the fact that the majority of the food on its shelves is still produced as cheaply as possible.

Faber, at EWG, wouldn’t say if he shared that concern. “Walmart is the nation’s biggest grocer, and they’re a business like any other, and they’re providing choices to consumers,” he said. “Every grocer in the country can do better, including Walmart.” Hladik, at Center for Rural Affairs, said that he saw a “bright line” between the company and the family’s philanthropy and considered them different things.

But it’s impossible to understand where Walmart money ends and Walton money begins, if a line even exists. For example, Sam’s children currently own about 50 percent of the company’s shares, most of which are held through their family office, Walton Enterprises. In 2021, the Walton Family Foundation reported paying Walton Enterprises $29.4 million for management services, and the organization’s tax filing was prepared by an employee of Walton Enterprises. Steuart Walton, cousin to Lukas and Tom, is on Walmart’s board of directors; his sister, Annie Proietti, is the chair of the board at the Walton Family Foundation. Gregory Penner, Walmart’s board chair, is married to Carrie Walton Penner, another cousin who is on the Walton Family Foundation’s board.

In putting together reports on the company and foundation at ILSR, Mitchell said, “One of the points that we thought really needed to be made was it’s the same family controlling both. There’s no separation between the Walton family agenda and the Walmart agenda.”

There are potential legal reasons to keep church and state separate. Representatives for the Walton Family Foundation and Builders Vision reiterated that separation to Civil Eats on several occasions. In the course of reporting this story, however, they also revealed that they were in communication with each other and representatives at Walmart.

It’s impossible to understand where Walmart money ends and Walton money begins, if a line even exists: “It’s the same family controlling both. There’s no separation between the Walton family agenda and the Walmart agenda.”

When asked about the connection between Builders Visions’ work and Walmart, Balawajder referred to a “strict separation,” but said she hoped their work would result in sustainable food companies succeeding, therefore giving them a chance to be sold in “any store, including Walmart,” because “a rising tide lifts all boats.”

Maybe, but maybe not.

Even if the Walmart fortune is truly creating a rising tide toward a more regenerative food system, it may be unlikely to lift the most battered of boats: those small, regenerative, diversified farms selling healthy food to their neighbors. Because at the end of the day, it costs more. And not only have they been losing money for years, they’re still caught in the everyday-low-price hurricane, trying to stay afloat within a system that rewards producers who scale up to sell at Walmart’s prices.

Ron Rosmann, for example, the farmer from Harlan, Iowa, isn’t angry that Walmart executives never called to buy his popcorn or porkchops after they toured his farm. But he is bitter over the fact that Walmart and other companies like it have been hurting him indirectly ever since. Where he used to sell 700 hogs a year, he’s down to about 300. He just can’t compete on price.

“I get very upset, because I say we need more farmers and they need to be farming in ways that are more climate-friendly and better for local economies and giving people a chance to have meaningful work and have ownership of land,” he said. Companies like Walmart focus on “efficiencies and economies of scale without ever factoring in the externalities. All of that ties together.”

Still, even Rosmann is only a degree removed from Walton money. He was once a leader within Practical Farmers of Iowa. Today, his involvement is limited to hosting field days, while his son remains on the board. Practical Farmers of Iowa has received more than $3 million from the Walton Family Foundation since 2009.

Walmart could make a choice to change its model and prioritize regenerative goals over short-term earnings, LeZaks said. While it seems impossible to imagine, so does the alternative, he said. “At the end of the day, do they want to be in business in 10 or 50 years? Or do they want to maximize wealth generation now? And then it’s going to be them and their stores and the rest of us are out of soil.”

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