Q&A with Nufarm
Unlocking the power of agriculture for a low-carbon future
In collaboration with WWF and the Bioplastics Feedstock Alliance, Nufarm is demonstrating how agriculture can be both an environmental solution and an economic opportunity.
© courtesy Nufarm
The Sustainability Works team recently spoke with Nicola Noponen, Senior Advisor – Global Sustainability Strategy & Engagement at Nufarm, to learn more about her company’s strategy for sustainable bioplastic.
Tell us more about Nufarm and your work to grow solutions for a sustainable future.
Nufarm is a global agricultural company headquartered in Australia. Together with universities and other research institutions, governmental and non-governmental thought leaders, we proudly join forces to develop and deliver sustainable solutions to help farmers and businesses meet the global needs of food, feed, fiber and fuel production. Through our bioenergy crop development, Nufarm is demonstrating how agriculture can play a leading role as a decarbonization solution — without competing with demand for food, feed and fiber.
At the heart of this work is Nufarm’s most advanced feedstock, Brassica carinata, a non-food oilseed crop classified as an “intermediate crop.” As such, it belongs to an emerging class of novel crops that are grown between traditional main crop growing seasons on land that would otherwise lie idle or fallow. Similar to traditional cover crops, which are not harvestable but provide valuable agronomic benefits, intermediate crops have introduced new opportunities for farmers to generate additional income while also improving soil health, enhancing water retention, and improving the disease and pest resistance of farms without expanding agricultural land. Intermediate crops have been recognized and their adoption encouraged by both the United States Department of Agriculture and by the European Commission.[1],[2]
Nufarm carinata helps regenerate the land it’s grown on while its harvested grain produces an energy-rich crude oil that can replace or supplement fossil sources to produce renewable fuels, bioplastics, and chemicals. It’s a powerful example of how circular solutions in agriculture can strengthen rural economies and accelerate global decarbonization.
© Courtesy Nicola Noponen
What opportunities does Nufarm see in scaling Brassica carinata?
At the systems level, carinata oil can directly replace fossil-derived oils in fuels, chemicals, and plastics — making it a versatile decarbonization feedstock.
More than just a crop, carinata represents a fully traceable complete production system and a closely managed life cycle from soil to oil. Within Nufarm’s closed-loop system, carinata is only grown between primary crop growing seasons, delivering farmers and their communities and ecosystems the agronomic benefits of a cover crop. These include improved nutrient management, reduced soil erosion, improved soil quality and improved biodiversity. Carinata is a highly water-use efficient crop and is typically not irrigated.
Importantly, farmers benefit from a new source of revenue during crop cycle times when plots would historically otherwise not be productive. Nufarm thus provides an attractive value proposition for farmers considering adopting improved management practices like reducing or eliminating tillage or limiting nitrogen application.
When developing the value chain for your feedstocks, which tools, metrics, or reporting frameworks matter most?
Working with growers around the world, we see first-hand that supply chain decarbonization creates landscape-level sustainability outcomes while creating opportunities for companies seeking new ways of doing business. However, in the transition to more sustainable supply chains, it is critical that robust, consistent, high-quality sustainability standards are upheld.
Nufarm’s carinata – currently grown primarily in Latin America – is third-party certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB), ensuring the highest standards of environmental and social performance and full supply chain traceability. Regulation increasingly guides market access, but Nufarm’s approach goes beyond compliance to deliver confidence for customers, partners, and consumers alike.
An example of this is our soil carbon program, which combines physical soil testing with advanced modelling to accurately track changes in soil carbon stocks. Establishing this program at scale has required years of research, partnerships, and investment — but it enables Nufarm to provide credible, data-backed soil carbon claims alongside each metric ton of carinata grain and its downstream products.
In doing so, Nufarm is demonstrating how supply chain decarbonization and circularity can be measured, reported, and rewarded — helping partners achieve their Scope 3 emissions targets with confidence.
© Shutterstock / William Edge
© Shutterstock / RAHUL LAKESAR
What specific cross-sector collaboration opportunities would you like to see more of to address challenges in the scale and supply of biobased feedstocks like carinata?
Across the bioeconomy, regulatory frameworks and commercial markets remain largely sector-specific and are evolving at different speeds, despite drawing on the same resource base. Renewable fuels are already integrating carinata at scale, while chemicals and plastics are advancing more slowly as technologies and policies evolve. Yet Nufarm’s fully traceable, high-integrity model can contribute to net-zero supply chains across sectors.
Bringing carinata to market has been possible only through deep collaboration - with growers, processors, fuel producers and downstream users - to create a resilient and transparent value chain that meets the reporting needs of multiple sectors. But scaling sustainable feedstocks like carinata requires even broader collaboration. Along with enabling public policies and increasing alignment across global standards, a network of like-minded value chain partners committed to delivering sustainable agricultural solutions for hard-to-decarbonize sectors is already helping create the demand signals and the shared investment necessary to de-risk supply chains and accelerate market transformation.
Nufarm also advocates for industry alignment around sustainability metrics, ensuring consistent expectations across sectors. Joint projects that pool demand and co-invest in infrastructure could dramatically increase the efficiency and reach of sustainable feedstocks, while aligned policy advocacy and incentive structures could help bridge the current price gap between bio-based and fossil-based inputs.
What do you think is the biggest challenge for the future of responsibly sourced biomass? How can we overcome challenges in scaling responsibly managed feedstocks for different industries?
The greatest challenge to responsibly sourced biomass remains the cost–scale paradox. Sustainable feedstocks often carry higher initial costs than fossil alternatives, and without consistent policy support or market recognition of their broader environmental and social value, scaling can stall.
To overcome this, Nufarm calls on industry and policy leaders to place tangible value on sustainability performance — recognizing that feedstocks like carinata don’t just decarbonize products; they also enhance biodiversity, build community resilience, strengthen supply chain visibility, and ultimately reduce fiduciary risk.
By embedding these co-benefits into procurement decisions, companies can turn sustainable agriculture into a mainstream climate solution — and together, we can grow a truly regenerative bioeconomy.