Member Spotlights
Member Spotlight: Truterra
Learn how Truterra harnesses Field to Market’s sustainability metrics to strengthen value for their farmer customers.
Since their inception as a farmer-owned cooperative in 1921, Land O’Lakes has been committed to finding innovative ways to help farmers meet the increasing global demands for food. While their core mission as a business hasn’t changed, the food and agriculture sustainability landscape has—and Land O’Lakes is on a journey to meet new demands while positioning the farmer first.
Truterra, LLC, the sustainability business and subsidiary of Land O'Lakes, provides a unique end-to-end approach to sustainability services, supporting farmer customers through actionable tools and a network of local advisers, while also meeting rising demand for sustainability reporting from their own downstream customers.
“There is an authentic desire from all parts of the ag value chain to participate and provide solutions when it comes to sustainability,” shares Jason Weller, VP of Truterra. “Our business is centered around asking, ‘How do we create value for farm families through sustainability?’”
As an active member in Field to Market, Truterra has joined forces with stakeholders across the food and ag value chain to deliver tangible solutions to that question.
By integrating Field to Market’s suite of sustainability metrics directly into their farmer-facing decision support tool, the Truterra™ Insights Engine, Truterra’s farmer customers can tap into the industry’s most widely accepted sustainability framework, enabling them to use outcomes-based metrics to document their sustainability performance and identify areas for continuous improvement.
Building on that strong foundation of key technology tools and insights, Truterra collaborates with Field to Market members and a powerful network of ag retailers to scale sustainability solutions across the U.S.
Supporting Farmers to Harness Sustainability Insights
In 2018, Truterra became one of Field to Market’s Qualified Data Management Partners (QDMP), a network of technology solution providers who integrate Field to Market’s suite of sustainability metrics and algorithms directly into market-based farmer tools.
By harnessing Field to Market’s sustainability framework alongside agronomic decision support, the Truterra™ Insights Engine allows its more than 1,600 farmer users to simultaneously evaluate productivity, profitability and sustainability options as part of their planning process.
“Farmers are business oriented, and they want to understand how Truterra is helping them optimize their crop success, their financial returns and their environmental stewardship,” says Weller. “Putting those insights into the hands of farmers helps them put in place new practices and agronomic systems.”
Equipping farmers with actionable data insights is a key value add for Truterra’s customers—support which is strengthened by the backbone of Truterra’s ag retail owners, trusted advisers who partner with farmers to interpret their performance and implementing locally-relevant conservation solutions.
“Farmers turn to agricultural retailers for their farm inputs and agronomic advice,” explains Weller. “Our ag retail network is locally built and locally owned – they know their markets, their soils and their farmers better than anyone. That’s what allows for place-based conservation to happen.”
As part of Truterra’s continued evolution, the company has begun to harness its broad network of advisers to enroll farmers in a carbon credit market which will financially reward growers for soil health practices which can sequester carbon in the soil. Truterra’s approach aims to center the farmer at its core.
“Through TruCarbon, we’re able to provide value back to farmers for the carbon sequestration services that they are providing,” Weller reflects. “Farmers’ awareness of the value of their data is so different than it was even a year ago. They appreciate that our program is coming from a farmer-owned coop with a farmer-first mentality.”
Jason Weller
Vice President,
Truterra
“Farmers are business oriented, and they want to understand how Truterra is helping them optimize their crop success, their financial returns and their environmental stewardship. Putting those insights into the hands of farmers helps them put in place new practices and agronomic systems.”
Jason Weller
Vice President
Truterra
Transformation Through Collaboration
Bolstered by their network of farmers and advisers, Truterra is collaborating with Field to Market members to scale the value of farmers’ sustainability data and create meaningful change on the ground.
Truterra supports five projects registered in Field to Market’s Continuous Improvement Accelerator, collaborating with partners across the food and agriculture value chain to advance locally-led sustainability solutions in ten U.S. states.
As a sponsor on Field to Market’s largest project, the Tate and Lyle Sustainable Corn Project, Truterra is partnering with Tate and Lyle to engage more than 1,500 producers on 1.5 million acres of Midwestern farmland in conservation practices.
Through the project, local ag retailers work with farmers to enter and analyze their sustainability data into the Truterra™ Insights Engine, equipping them with relevant technical support and actionable insights. The project partners hope to ultimately drive the adoption of conservation practices which improve farmers’ greenhouse gas emissions and soil health.
“It takes a significant investment of technology and people to operate on that scale,” reflects Weller. “As a cooperative sustainability program, we’re able to look beyond a single farm and provide insights at scale.”
In addition to directly supporting farmers, Truterra’s position in the value chain allows them to provide a unique value for downstream customers hoping to better understand and ultimately advance the sustainability performance of their supply chains.
“We have customers who are farmers, food companies, technology partners, and part of the ag value chain, and we think Truterra has found a path to create value for them all,” says Weller. “In the end, we’re not just a data management partner—we’re a sustainability conservation partner.”
“We’re proud to be part of the Field to Market family,” Weller continues. “We really believe that together we’re learning how to create value for farmers through conservation.”
