AGCO Committed to Sustainability

Tim Hammerich

News Reporter

The entire agriculture industry is under pressure to be more sustainable. But the definition of sustainability can vary from one person to the next. Publicly traded agribusinesses are under extra scrutiny in this area, and are devising strategies that will impact the entire industry. Louisa Parker-Smith is head of sustainability for farm machinery manufacturer AGCO.

Parker-Smith… “For us, we are a manufacturing companies. Of course, we do have a substantial greenhouse gas and emissions footprint, so de-carbonizing operations and actually thinking about how we can help our customers. reduce their environmental footprint through use of our products is a really key area for us. I would say that's your traditional wheelhouse of sustainability that you look at your operations first. Secondly, I think again, being a manufacturing company, protecting the health safety and wellbeing of employees is always important. This is not a new thing, but it's an area that we really want to double down on.”

For AGCO, sustainability also means ensuring the sustainability of their farmer customers.

Parker-Smith… “Well, the topic of climate change, we know that's on every agenda right now. And we know that changing climate and more severe weather events is material to agriculture. Really starting to look at how products and services can support farmers with managing the health of their soils, transitioning and adapting to climate change risks. I mean, it's something to kind of address those. That was an area we wanted to focus on. And specifically also, how can we support with the technologies? You know, our machines go up and down a field multiple times in a year. So how can we never extend certain technologies to get more granular on some of the data that we can draw from the field to help with some of carbon sequestration measurements.”

AGCO outlined their priorities in their first ever sustainability report published earlier this year.