ADM, Agrible and General Mills Honored for Helping Farmers Conserve Water and Build Soil Health in the Southern Plains

Reaping Lasting Change: ADM, Agrible and General Mills Honored for Helping Farmers Conserve Water and Build Soil Health in the Southern Plains

Amber waves of grain are not the only bounty harvested in the Southern Plains. The recipients of Field to Market's 2018 Collaboration of the Year Award are reaping lasting change, positively impacting the lands and waters of the fruited plains for years to come. This year's award honors Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM), Agrible and General Mills, Inc. for their collective efforts to help farmers in the Southern Plains help farmers in the Southern Plains build soil health, conserve water and extend the life of the Ogallala aquifer through improved management. 

By working together in the Southern Plains Wheat Project for the past two growing seasons, these partners are working to create a more profitable, resilient and transparent agricultural supply chain by helping farmers quantify and measure continuous improvement in soil health and water conservation, while exploring practices that build resiliency.

Improving Resiliency Through Uncovering Insights

Field to Market's sustainability metrics are fully integrated into Agrible's software platform, which enables participating farmers in the Fieldprint Project to quantify their sustainability performance and pursue opportunities for continuous improvement. "Using the tools that the Southern Plains Wheat Project has given us, we have been able to make some agronomic changes on our farm. We were able to identify some fields that we could cut back some of our nitrogen use a little bit and still keep the same yields. We were able to look at water efficiency of some of our pivots and become a little bit better stewards of that resource," shared Matt Splitter, Participating Farmer, Lorraine, Kansas. Matt Splitter, Participating Farmer, Lorraine, Kansas Each year, farmers in the project participate in a grower workshop hosted by ADM, Agrible and General Mills, where results of the sustainability data collected through the project are shared and farmers are connected to additional resources to help implement best practices on farm, ensuring a feedback loop with actionable outcomes. Jared Oatney, Participating Farmer, Partridge, Kansas "I love to grow things, I love to see process improvement. The truth is that the average farmer gets 40 shots at growing a crop because that's about how many years a farmer's career is. We've got to be getting out of our comfort zone and coming alongside people that are helping us learn and questioning why we do that," emphasized Jared Oatney, Participating Farmer, Partridge, Kansas. General Mills, ADM and Agrible are working in collaboration to help farmers understand how their management practices impact different sustainability outcomes and explore how certain approaches can improve their resiliency in the potential future of prolonged drought while also helping conserve water and contribute to recharging the Ogallala aquifer. 

Providing freshwater for roughly one-fifth of the wheat, corn, cattle and cotton in the United States, the Ogallala is one of the largest underground freshwater sources in the world. This vast underground reservoir flows beneath eight states, spanning an estimated 174,000 square miles of the Central Plains and storing as much water as Lake Huron. But this giant basin is not keeping up with demand as key regions of the aquifer are depleted faster than rain can recharge the underground reservoir. 

With the support of project partners, participating farmers have evaluated the sustainability performance of more than 176,000 acres of hard winter wheat, learning how their farming practices can help conserve soil and water, while also identifying opportunities for improvement by benchmarking their performance against their peers. 

As a result, participating farmers are already taking critical steps to improve the environmental performance of this region, which was subject to the Dust Bowl in in the 1930s. For instance, to help conserve water, approximately 10 percent of the irrigated fields in west Kansas no longer use end guns and implemented flowmeters. In addition, some participating farmers also implemented absolute cutbacks in groundwater usage to help reduce pressure on the aquifer. 

Moreover, the majority of participating farmers are implementing diverse crop rotations to more effectively manage soil moisture. This includes practices such as a fallow season in Western Kansas or cover crops like winter wheat, which require less water than other standard crops in the Central Kansas rotation with the added benefit of sustained ground cover in the winter to reduce wind erosion. 

Just as participating farmers are looking at how they can both conserve water and improve irrigation water use efficiency, they are applying similar insights to improve soil health and conservation. For instance, 90 percent of the fields enrolled in the Fieldprint Project utilize reduced tillage, which has benefits to improving soil carbon, retaining soil moisture and reducing passes across the field without a negative impact on crop yield. 

"We only have what's out there as far as the, the earth it's there, we can't make more of it. So we have to take care of what we have. When you look at just the erosion numbers, it makes you think about do we really need to be disking that field, or can we just spray it and, and not have to disturb the soil. Because if the wind starts blowing, it's going to end up in the air. It really makes you think about the way you're farming and, and how you're going to be able to continue to do it for years to come," explained Jill McGinn, Grain Merchandiser, ADM and wife of a participating farmer in Sedgwick, Kansas. This partnership unlocks an opportunity for the entire value chain to work together to engage consumers in a shared commitment to continuous improvement, documenting and demonstrating sustainability performance of wheat production in the Southern Plains. 

"In the case of the Southern Plains Wheat engagement really, it's it was kind of a one plus one plus one equals 11, kind of a combination. And so to be able to team together, ADM, Agrible and General Mills, we were able to tell the story of sustainable agriculture from an end to end value chain standpoint that I think was really powerful," shared Kevin O'Donnell, Director, Global Sustainability Sourcing & Operations, General Mills. 

"Many producers are willing to be part of the program because they want to be transparent with their data. They don't feel like they have anything to hide, and they really want to be an advocate for modern agriculture and show the consumer what they're actually doing on their farm," highlighted Marvin Schlatter, Grain Originator, ADM. 

By working together, these partners are not only helping to make change on the ground, but also to connect consumers with where their food comes from and how it is grown. 

"The people that are buying our products, they're trying to figure out why we're doing what we're doing. And sometimes, you know, we have to take a hard look in the mirror and say, is there a better way and, if there is, let's not be afraid to challenge that and implement it," said Oatney. 

The partners have worked towards integrating field-scale research on grower farms to discover opportunities for improvement as well as encouraging learning and innovation through workshops and field day events with Kansas State Extension as well as the Soil Health Partnership. The program will continue to expand the scope of this targeted continuous improvement, leveraging existing private, local, state, and federal programs such as USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service cost-share programs and state-led locally enhanced management areas for groundwater.

"The people that are buying our products, they're trying to figure out why we're doing what we're doing. And sometimes, you know, we have to take a hard look in the mirror and say, is there a better way and, if there is, let's not be afraid to challenge that and implement it."

Jared Oatney
Participating Farmer
Partridge, Kansas "We're committed to doing more-more to improve the productivity of winter wheat, more to protect the environment including land and water, more to promote research and innovation solutions as well as more to improve local communities that we're working with. We're doing this one field, one grower and one season at a time." Jeff Peters 
VP, Sustainability 
Agrible A Collaboration More Than the Sum of
Its Parts "We're committed to doing more-more to improve the productivity of winter wheat, more to protect the environment including land and water, more to promote research and innovation solutions as well as more to improve local communities that we're working with. We're doing this one field, one grower and one season at a time," emphasized Jeff Peters, VP, Sustainability, Agrible. 

Partners in the Southern Plains Wheat Fieldprint Project aim to expand participating acreage to 250,000 acres in 2018, while continuing to promote education, research and awareness for farmers. The focus is on helping find solutions to pressing challenges facing the region, which also impact the future viability of operations for all partners involved. Together with research elements from new partners like Kansas State Extension and the Soil Health Partnership, General Mills, ADM and Agrible will seek to advance sustainability improvements within farmers' operations with a focus on irrigation water conservation, building soil health and optimizing nitrogen management. In addition, the partners are also exploring collaboration opportunities across Southwest Kansas to include grain sorghum in the rotation to improve soil organic matter and water holding capacity. 

"We have made significant strides in the first two years of our program. Now our focus turns to adding appropriate elements to ensure all collaborators see sustaining value in continued engagement. Most notably, we must listen to our producers to understand what they need and implement strategies that drive greater return on his or her invested time," shared Jay Watson, Sourcing Engagement Manager, Global Sustainability, General Mills.