General Mills and Syngenta Central Wisconsin Project
General Mills and Syngenta are working with producers since 2015 in Central Wisconsin to establish a credible baseline from 2857 acres utilizing the Field to Market® environmental performance indicators as well as documenting improvements across the crop rotation. Our mission is to advance profitable and sustainable farming practices that will help to enhance natural resource management. Growers, the agribusiness community and the value chain can see first-hand through this program how sustainable agriculture, conservation solutions and science-based metrics can work together to feed a changing world. The Wisconsin program aims to build a shared understanding of sustainability as well as educate and equip growers with the knowledge, skills and expertise to meet future global demands.
Objectives
We worked with Syngenta to capture field level data from 7 producers representing 8,515 acres to better understand sustainability outcomes. We met annually to review aggregated reporting, share individual grower reports, hear from expert speakers, engage in small group discussions, etc. We have demonstrated continuous improvement in some indicators but not others, and have added practice based surveys where needed. We have provided thank you gifts for growers and are now engaging with them and supplier partners to chart out plans for 2021 crop and beyond.