I take a great deal of pride announcing that Agren is one of the newest members of Field to Market. For those of you that don’t know about the organization, you should take a look under their hood. Field to Market represents all facets of the U.S. agricultural supply chain; providing an unparalleled platform that helps define, measure, and advance the sustainability of food, fiber and fuel production. It is an organization I have watched for the past 3 or 4 years. After attending several of their meetings, we felt obliged to support their …
Ag’s Impossible To-do List
Have you ever felt like you're responsible for completing an impossible to-do list? Who hasn't, right?I can vividly remember one day earlier this year when I attempted to type a list of all of the things (both personally and professionally) that I wanted to accomplish every day. I still have the list... it has 15 items. As a number, 15 doesn't really seem like that many. But, these weren't everyday obvious things. The words on my list weren't brush teeth, pay bills, empty Inbox, or feed kids. Next to each check box were phrases like learn …
Sustainability — the crop input of tomorrow
The business of farming is changing. Consumers are demanding sustainably produced food, the global population is exploding, issues such as hypoxia, algae blooms and climate change are dominating the news, and the threat of environmental regulation looms near. As the call for more conservation practices continues to rise, growers will increasingly turn to their trusted service providers (their ag retailer) for assistance. In my conversations with ag retail leadership, it is obvious they are becoming acutely aware of the need to implement …
Top 5 Features of a Good Sustainability Program
In a recent study, 60% of Iowa farmers agreed that their fertilizer dealers should do more to help them address nutrient loss. However, those same farmers reported they were least likely to receive information about the Nutrient Reduction Strategy from their local agricultural retailers, seed company salespeople, and independent/private crop advisers. To me, that’s a disconnect. If, as an ag retailer, you want to maintain your status as a farmers’ “most trusted advisor,” then you will want to provide meaningful assistance to help farmers …
Are Sustainability Commitments Achievable?
As a young NRCS Conservationist I was required, every couple of years, to develop a workload analysis for my Soil and Water Conservation District. This exercise required me to evaluate my District’s resource needs and formulate a strategy for how my staff would work with farmers to meet these workload demands. Every single time I did the analysis, I always turned out the same results. In order to accomplish the workload, I invariably needed to quadruple the staff, make a significant improvement in technology, and hope for a miracle that one …
50 million acres pledged in sustainability initiative
"Too many people have lost sight of the fact that productive soil is essential to the production of food.” by: Hugh Hammond BennettOn Monday, December 5th, the Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture announced their goal of advancing the sustainability of U.S. agriculture. To achieve this goal, Field to Market seeks to engage 20% of productive acres of U.S. commodity crop production in its supply chain sustainability program by 2020. This is equivalent to 50 million acres.At the time, two significant things about this announcement jumped out at …