A new guide for farmers’ trusted advisors is out. The Nature Conservancy published the Farmers Advisor Roadmap in the spring. The organization says it’s going make regenerative agriculture easier to adopt in the Midwest and beyond. Jess Savage has more.
Regenerative agriculture practices improve water and soil quality and benefit wildlife. It’s also been shown to make farmers more resilient and profitable. But it can be hard to adopt regenerative agriculture practices, especially if farmers don’t have the support they need.
Luke Petersen oversaw the creation of the roadmap. He said it's important to include advisors in the shift to regenerative agriculture, too.
"We need these practices to be really core to how farmers are making everyday decisions," he said. "We need the people that farmers are already talking to about their operation every season — every day, in many cases — they need to be fully bought in and equipped to help those farmers be successful.”
Petersen said this guide will make it easier for people across the agriculture industry to share resources and scale regenerative agriculture.
Stakeholders from farmers unions, farm supply businesses and soybean associations worked for a year on the report.
The roadmap has three goals: to build awareness of regenerative agriculture, to show how regenerative agriculture can be good for business, and to build skills across the agriculture industry to support this work.
“If you're a farmer, the ask is that you look to where your own team of advisors can help you implement regenerative management on your own operation," Petersen said. "If those services aren't currently available to you, you are really the most powerful voice to help us continue to generate that demand for this trusted advice."
He said making the roadmap took a lot of collaboration, and that same collaboration is core to the guide itself. He says it’s hard to adopt these practices as one farmer, but with support, it’s possible for regenerative agriculture to expand even further.
