Murillo is a seasoned professional with nearly two decades of experience in sustainability. He has worked with leading multinational organizations in the food, agriculture, and environmental services sectors across North America, Latin America, Europe, and Africa. A French-Mexican expert currently based in France, he has dedicated his career to fostering sustainable connections between farmers, value chains, and consumers while promoting practices that restore soil health and natural habitats.
In this discussion with Agri-Business Review Europe, Timothée Murillo, Senior Director of Smart and Sustainable Farming at McCain Foods, explores regenerative agriculture's transformative role in advancing global food systems' long-term sustainability.
At McCain Foods, the world’s leading producer of frozen potato products, I am dedicated to advancing the company’s commitment to regenerative agriculture. Since joining the company three and a half years ago, I have focused on enabling the implementation of regenerative practices across 100 percent of our potato acreage globally, and bringing sustainable value to our partnering farmers, customers, and brand.
Collaborating with potato farmers, regional teams, and stakeholders across our potato-sourcing regions, I design and implement innovative solutions to facilitate the transition to regenerative farming. I balance commercial imperatives and sustainability commitments, ensuring these practices are both successful and rewarding for growers while promoting long-term competitiveness and resilience.
To achieve this, we must reinvent the way we produce potatoes, and implement low-carbon and sustainable farming practices. A holistic transformation of our value chain is crucial to building a resilient future and ensuring the production of high-quality, regenerative potatoes for generations to come.
Building a Sustainable Agricultural Future Across the Value Chain
By embedding sustainability throughout operations, businesses can unlock new value and explore untapped potential, positioning it as a driving force for creative solutions to persistent problems
Implementing sustainable agriculture practices requires understanding the challenges that farmers may face, and these might be technical, financial, and psychological. Technically, we strive to bring the best agronomy advice and illustrate regenerative practices with our partnering farmers in every region of the world. Financially, we aspire to demonstrate the farm case for each sustainable practice, such as diversifying the crop rotation or optimizing the use of water and agricultural inputs. It's a journey of collective change, embracing practices that ensure soil health and long-term competitiveness.
From a company’s perspective, I am fundamentally committed to building a strong business case for sustainability, ensuring internal alignment across diverse functions, and delivering superior value to our customers and consumers. This critical to build a resilient value chain and delivering low-carbon food products with superior value.
Making the Case for Regenerative Agriculture
Advancing regenerative agriculture has required building a very compelling investment case, in each region of the world. This involves identifying the costs and savings associated with changing farming practices, understanding shifts in farm profitability and fostering innovative approaches and partnerships across the value chain.
Collaboration with financial institutions, especially agricultural banks as well as public organizations, is crucial in providing tailored financial instruments that help farmers adopt regenerative practices.
Beyond financial partnerships, engaging with farming equipment providers, service suppliers, NGOs, scientific bodies, and universities has been essential to co-create innovative solutions and share the costs and benefits of transitioning to regenerative agriculture.
Unlocking Smart and Sustainable Farming
At McCain, integrating smart technology and sustainability is at the core of modern agriculture. "Smart" refers to leveraging cutting-edge ideas, technologies, and scientific advancements to enhance sustainable practices.
Technologies such as precision agriculture, decision support systems, weather stations or smart irrigation provide farmers with practical solutions to do more with less. These innovations reduce carbon emissions, optimize the use of water and agricultural inputs while protecting yield and quality. We are proud to collaborate with scientific bodies, startups, technology providers, and agricultural companies to innovate, learn, and develop impactful solutions at scale.
Farm of the Future Program
McCain’s Farm of the Future program showcases our commitment to regenerative and low-carbon agriculture. We currently operate two Farms of the Future in Canada and South Africa, with plans for a third Farm in 2025. In these farms, we test advanced regenerative practices, experiment new technologies, and share findings to accelerate the adoption of sustainable farming practices in the farming communities and territories where we operate.
