Learn how The Nature Conservancy is working with farmers to advance sustainable agriculture in watersheds across the country.

Member Spotlight: The Nature Conservancy

Learn how The Nature Conservancy is working with farmers to advance sustainable agriculture in watersheds across the country.

The Nature Conservancy works to conserve lands and waters by joining forces across supply chains, and the conservation organization has been working with agriculture since the early 1990s. As a founding member in the Alliance, the Conservancy has been partnering with fellow Field to Market members to accomplish tremendous tasks.

“We see working lands playing a major role in improving our environment and providing a matrix of habitats. Whether you’re on the East Coast, Midwest or the West Coast, agriculture is occurring on the landscape, and we, as an organization, have realized we must work with agriculture to find ways for it to do its work sustainably while we’re protecting nature and feeding the world,” explained Larry Clemens, director of North American Agriculture for The Nature Conservancy.

“What makes me excited about being a part of Field to Market is its science-based, collaborative approach, where partners are doing work on the ground and letting that experience feed back into the science, and you just continually repeat that cycle as we improve agriculture,” Larry said.

Through Field to Market, the Conservancy has been able to work with the entire supply chain to agree on what defines sustainable agriculture, the fundamental indicators that can be used to measure it and, together, implement practices that move us all forward towards continuous improvement at scale.

© Cristina Rutter for The Nature Conservancy

“For us, it is really important to work within the supply chain and try to get adoption of conservation at scale and recognize farmers for the good work they do,” he asserted. “In many of the projects that we have across the country, we’re engaged with many of the supply chain partners that are members in Field to Market.”

The Conservancy and its project partners work with farmers by using the Fieldprint® Calculator and engaging in conversations centered on continuous improvement using the tool. The partners use adaptive management to test specific practices to adjust and refine over time.

“Our membership in Field to Market allows us to excel in what I call our ground game: almost 100 agricultural-related projects across North America,” shared Larry. “We’ll continue to use these projects to not only test the tools that we’re developing, but also work with partners and companies to implement the Fieldprint Calculator in project areas and use it as a tool to measure and validate if we’re helping move farmers towards sustainable agriculture.”

The supply chain partners sit down with participating farmers and analyze how they compare to other farmers at regional, state and national levels. Management information entered into the tool is analyzed and transformed into a Fieldprint® Analysis, which graphically represents the sustainability performance of a farmer's unique operation and how it compares to regional, state and national benchmarks.

c-cristina-rutter-for-the-nature-conservancy-web

Larry Clemens

Agriculture Director,
The Nature Conservancy

“Our membership in Field to Market allows us to excel in what I call our ground game: almost 100 agricultural-related projects across North America. We’ll continue to use these projects to not only test the tools that we’re developing, but also work with partners and companies to implement the Fieldprint Calculator in project areas and use it as a tool to measure and validate if we’re helping move farmers towards sustainable agriculture.”

Larry Clemens
North American Agriculture Director
The Nature Conservancy

“The farmers can learn from that data, but then they can also start reflecting on their own spidergrams, and say, I didn’t realize I wasn’t scoring as well as others in soil erosion, or water quality, and they can start to think about what they can do then to improve in those areas,” Larry explained.

“Field to Market gives us the opportunity to influence and harness supply chain forces to really help growers identify opportunities to improve and then, at the same time, provide incentives or technical assistance to help those growers adopt the practices they need to improve,” he said.

Using a common measurement framework for assessing the sustainability of commodity crop production allows the Conservancy to more easily find success, gain consumer confidence and ensure a science-based approach.

“If we didn’t have a common framework, I would hate to think how many tools or processes would be out there,” added Larry. “The Fieldprint Platform gives us the collective ability to ground these measurements in strong science, and I think that’ll relate to strengthened consumer confidence in the claims we’ll ultimately be making.”

The Nature Conservancy plans to continue to work with fellow Field to Market members to collectively achieve a shared vision. Although members take slightly different paths, Larry said each is going in the same direction to the same place.

“In the sustainable agriculture space, in row crop agriculture, Field to Market is the premier organization to be engaged in and working with,” Larry emphasized. “Here’s the group to invest your time with. The entire supply chain is represented. It’s science based. It’s a collaborative approach. It’s on the ground. Those are many of the reasons we’re engaged with Field to Market.”

Read Other Member Spotlights