Red River Valley Sugarbeet Project
The Red River Valley region is known as the nation’s sugar bowl and is a primary area of focus for sustainably sourced sugarbeets since 2012. General Mills, Kellogg Company, and Syngenta are actively working with producers in North Dakota and Minnesota to establish a credible baseline utilizing the Field to Market® environmental performance indicators as well as documenting improvements across the crop rotation. Our collective mission is to advance sustainable farming practices within sugarbeet production through conservation solutions and technologies without sacrificing yield, quality or profitability. By exploring opportunities for improvement and promoting sustainable solutions, the supply chain can help to ensure meeting future challenges of feeding the world while better managing natural resources. The Project 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 needs
Objectives
We worked with Syngenta to capture field level data from 20 producers 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.