How to Make Regenerative Food Procurement Work: Lessons from the U.S.

By Alexandra Payne

Published Sept. 23, 2025, The Rockefeller Foundation

Photo credit: The Common Market

Based on learnings from the field, this article suggests three key areas of investment to accelerate values-based and regenerative public food procurement: (1) creating stable demand and upfront support for farmers through tools like forward commitments and pre-season payments that de-risk the transition to regenerative practices; (2) strengthening both hard infrastructure (aggregation, cold storage, transportation) and soft infrastructure (intermediaries, coordination, technical assistance) to connect small and mid-scale producers to institutional buyers; and (3) fostering coalitions that unite policymakers, institutions, researchers, and food system actors to translate policy into locally feasible programs and sustain momentum.

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