The consumer giant is working with the First Milk farmer-owned co-operative to share the risk of rolling out greener practices in its supply chain.

Pioneering field-by-field data has been helping dairy farmers measure the real-world impact of regenerative farming as they work to roll out greener methods.

Nestle has been working with First Milk, a farmer-owned dairy co-operative in Ayrshire and Cumbria that supplies milk for products like KitKats and Nescafe.

The consumer giant pays farmers bonuses for taking measures to protect and enhance the natural assets on their land, such as rotational grazing, restoring hedgerows, cutting down herbicide use, enriching the lives of cows, promoting biodiversity and engaging with communities.

In efforts to monitor the real-world impact of these changes, First Milk has been gathering data of what is happening on every single field managed by 80 farmers in the regenerative programme for the last few years.

The data set, thought to be the first of its kind on this scale, contains detailed information on what is going on in each field on every farm.

This includes the number of hedgerows, whether multi-species pastures have been planted, where cows are rotationally grazing and how watercourses are being protected.

The co-operative can then monitor farmers’ regenerative journeys and work with them on where new actions could be taken depending on their........

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