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PepsiCo has announced the third year of its Positive Agriculture Outcomes (PAO) Accelerator, backing eight new innovation projects across nine countries. The PAO Accelerator offers co-investment to local farming communities and provides funding for ag-tech start-ups that offer proven products or technology with the potential to scale. This year’s innovations aim to build resiliency through climate-related analysis, improve soil health and strengthen farms’ climate resilience. The programme will engage with farmers in Australia, Colombia, Egypt, India, Iraq, Pakistan, Poland, Romania and the UK. Among the roster of 2023 projects is a project with Australian grain growers to test and validate soil health management practices to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions on-farm. In Colombia, funding will support increasing potato crop quality and yield by installing sprinkler irrigation systems that will also reduce water use. In collaboration with 3Keel, a UK-based landscape innovation firm, funding from the PAO will help connect Europe-based organisations interested in supporting regenerative solutions with local farmland managers who can deliver measurable, sustainable outcomes. Margaret Henry, VP of sustainable and regenerative agriculture at PepsiCo, said: “We can't motivate systemic change on our own, and our PAO Accelerator continues to provide a forum for farming communities to bring forth ideas and opportunities, and receive the funding needed to get promising innovation off the ground”. “With this latest round of projects, we're not only fostering this powerful network of innovators across global farmland, but growing closer to achieving a more regenerative future, with farmers' insight at the forefront.” The PAO Accelerator, launched in 2021, aims to support the company’s goal to spread the adoption of regenerative farming practices across 7 million acres by 2030, improve the livelihoods of more than 250,000 people in its agricultural supply chain, and sustainably source 100% of its key ingredients.