<strong>Farmer Panel: Climate-Smart Program Rewards Must Outweigh Risks To Earn Grower Participation</strong>
When an attendee of the 2023 Trust In Food Symposium addressed the three farmers speaking on stage this Monday, he said what other members of the audience likely were thinking. “You all are hitting us with a dose of reality that I believe is badly needed in the conservation community,” the audience member said. He […]
State of Sustainable Ag Report 2022
Our new report in collaboration with Field to Market provides actionable insights on the complex web of influences that shape producer decision making as it relates to sustainable agriculture in 2022. We surveyed 542 row-crop farmers of all sizes from across 45 states to understand their perspectives on the barriers they face in making on-farm […]
Preparing for Sustainable Beef: Two Conditioning Challenges Changemakers Face
One of the most important components of creating change is the psychological concept of “classical conditioning” . Put simply, the idea behind conditioning is to understand a person’s unconscious response to a concept, this concept explains why we react the way we do – whether physically or emotionally – to the world around us. Ensuring that this unconscious […]
Tapping the Trusted Adviser Network
It has been a busy month of conferences and presentations in the world of sustainable agriculture. Last week, I had the privilege to present – in person! – at the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers meeting. In October, I was with the Ag Retailers Association talking with their members about what Farm […]
What It Means To Be A Supportive Change Agent
It’s not hyperbole to say that there is more attention on agriculture, and what it means in practice to be sustainable or regenerative, than there has been in human history. With companies like Walmart, General Mills, Cargill, The Fertilizer Institute, IndigoAg, and so many more rolling out iterations of “acres converted to sustainable ag practices” […]
Not Acres, But People
Regenerative ag targets aren’t about changing acres – they are about changing people. It is no secret that our world faces an immense crisis surrounding climate change and the degradation of natural resources. Realizing the potential positive impact that their supply chains can have, major companies are making headlines by announcing “regenerative ag” commitments with […]
Change Is Human
We must prioritize the humanity of farmers in our change programming. Before they put their dirty boots on in the morning, farmers and ranchers are humans first. If we want to empower our nation’s agricultural system to be more regenerative, sustainable, equitable and inclusive — then we are talking about empowering them to do so. We […]
The Importance of Communicating Your Sustainability Story
During Farm Journal’s 2021 Sustainable Produce Summit that took place earlier this month, a key theme of effectively communicating sustainable food and agriculture stories to consumers came through again and again. As specialty crop growers and food retailers make changes to meet both environmental needs and consumer requests, there have been hits and misses in […]
Farmer Insights Drive America’s Conservation Ag Movement Peer-To-Peer Learning Communities
In the not-too-distant past, a paradox of some U.S. sustainable agriculture activities was that too often, farmers and ranchers weren’t at the table. Alternately, farmers and ranchers were invited to the table to clean up the leftovers—after the big decisions were made. Such an approach understandably left many farmers and ranchers with a bad taste […]
Farmer Learning Community Insights From The Field: A Chorus of Conservation ’Whys’
It seems that so much of the conversation about farmers and conservation centers on why farmers are not implementing conservation, including barriers and limitations to voluntary adoption. Those sentiments sometimes sound like, “If only we could figure out how to reduce the economic consequences of….” or, “That will never work with our equipment limitations…” or, […]