New Research Finds Scaling Sustainable Agriculture Requires Blended Solutions

LENEXA, Kan. and WASHINGTON, February 15, 2022 /CSRwire/ – Farm Journal’s Trust In Food and Field to Market: The Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture as we speak launched the 2022 version of their “State of Sustainable Ag” report, highlighting views of 500 row-crop producers throughout the U.S. on pathways and limitations to accelerating conservation adoption.

Research performed by Field to Market in December 2021 confirmed that progress throughout 5 key environmental indicators has largely plateaued within the final decade. This new report builds on that discovering and sheds gentle on the monetary and psycho-cultural – or “Human Dimensions” – motivations and limitations for farmers in adopting conservation practices. The report supplies actionable insights and underscores the significance of blended options that give equal consideration to monetary incentives, technical help and tailor-made Human Dimensions cultural assist to speed up on-farm local weather affect.

“As the ‘new normal’ of a global pandemic and heightened weather, supply chain and market extremes continues, farmers still feel as alone as they did in 2020 in absorbing the shock of these changes,” stated Amy Skoczlas Cole, govt vp of Trust In Food. “This research uncovers the important finding that tailoring incentive and support programming to meet the diversity of farmer needs and motivations that can be uncovered by Human Dimensions insights is critical to program effectiveness.”

The report champions a blended method to accelerating conservation adoption—the Golden Triangle for Accelerating On-Farm Climate-Smart Ag—by leveraging options throughout three dimensions to design efficient incentive methods tailor-made to satisfy farmers’ distinctive wants, challenges and motivations.

Key findings from the report embrace:

• Profitability is driving motivation for farmers. Unsurprisingly, an amazing majority of producers (76%) chosen some type of profitability when requested what indicator is most vital to evaluate their operation’s efficiency. However, the report additionally revealed “softer” motivations and limitations that play a big position, corresponding to perceived degree of effort, opinions of neighbors and friends, and notion of danger.
• Reframing worth by a farmer lens. Nearly two-thirds of farmers (59%) stated they’ve by no means calculated the financial advantages supplied by adopting conservation agriculture practices and 22% stated they see no worth in calculating this. Re-casting this calculation course of as a crucial part to monetary decision-making success on the farm may improve its use.
• Mobilizing the center majority of farmers requires a distinct method than early adopters. With 88% of growers indicating they aren’t at present concerned in a non-public firm’s provide chain sustainability program, there may be vital alternative for downstream manufacturers and retailers to mobilize the center majority of growers by tailoring options to handle the variety of farmer wants and motivations.
• The meals and ag worth chain should fastidiously take into account the notion by farmers of their position in driving change on the bottom. While farmers want to enhance the profitability of their operations, the vast majority of farmers (53%) consider that the downstream provide chain shouldn’t affect on-farm manufacturing observe, underscoring that an intermingling of economics and private independence is a central driver to the sluggish or stalled uptake of change throughout agriculture.

“Our joint research with Trust In Food underscores the fact that now is the time to redouble our efforts and strengthen our industry’s approach to supporting and incentivizing farmers in advancing regenerative and sustainable agriculture,” says Scott Herndon, president of Field to Market. “The challenge and opportunity facing partnerships across the value chain is how to unlock the right mix of incentives. Solutions that blend financial mechanisms, technical assistance and community support will be key to helping farmers de-risk the transition to sustainable agriculture.”

The full report might be seen at: https://bit.ly/Sustainable-Ag-Report-22

About Farm Journal

Farm Journal is the nation’s main enterprise info and media firm serving the agricultural market. Started 145 years in the past with the preeminent Farm Journal journal, the corporate serves the row crop, livestock, produce and retail sectors by branded web sites, eNewsletters and cellphone apps; enterprise magazines; reside occasions together with conferences, seminars, and tradeshows; nationally broadcasted tv and radio packages; a sturdy mobile-text-marketing enterprise; and an array of data-driven, paid info merchandise. Farm Journal additionally is almost all shareholder of the web gear market, Machinery Pete LLC. In 2010, the corporate established the non-profit, public charity, Farm Journal Foundation, devoted to sustaining agriculture’s means to satisfy the important wants of a rising inhabitants by schooling and empowerment.

About Trust in Food
Trust In Food is a purpose-driven division of Farm Journal devoted to mainstreaming and accelerating the transition to extra sustainable and regenerative ag practices, making each greenback invested in conservation agriculture extra impactful. We carry enterprise intelligence to agricultural manufacturing habits change: serving to farmers perceive, need, and really feel able to endeavor observe change by information science, social analysis and strategic communications deployed by the omnichannel Farm Journal platform in collaboration with our companions. Visit www.trustinfood.com to study extra.

About Field to Market
Field to Market: The Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture brings collectively a various group of grower organizations; agribusinesses; meals, beverage, restaurant and retail firms; conservation teams; universities and public sector companions to give attention to defining, measuring and advancing the sustainability of meals, fiber and gasoline manufacturing. Field to Market is comprised of almost 150 members representing all sides of the U.S. agricultural provide chain, with members using greater than 5 million individuals and representing mixed revenues totaling over $1.5 trillion. For extra info, go to www.fieldtomarket.org and observe us on Twitter at twitter.com/FieldtoMarket

Contact

Susan Rhode
Director of Marketing, Trust in Food
(913) 213-7110
srhode@farmjournal.com

Carter Purcell
Communications Manager, Field to Market
(202) 297-8345
cpurcell@fieldtomarket.org