Trusted Advisor Partnership
Tim Hammerich
News Reporter
Food companies are making commitments to their consumers, but how does that translate for farmers? Dr. Abbey Wick is helping to coordinate the Trusted Advisor Partnership, an effort to connect food companies and farmers via certified crop advisors.
Wick… “When different companies are coming to growers with different incentives, maybe one is for reducing tillage, one is for cost share and cover crops, maybe one’s a premium, it can be really confusing because the farmers then are like which pays better, which one do I adopt, how do I adopt this practice and have it actually work on my operation. You know having them work together and then having that involvement of the certified crop advisor that knows the grower to figure out which program is best for them. And so they can have the knowledge of the programs, they can pick the one that might be the best for the company that’s purchasing their product and then guide the grower through that enrollment in that program. So, it still sounds really complicated, and I think it’s always going to be complicated but I think if we can get these companies to work together like they are, the CCA has the knowledge of all those programs, can pick the best one for the grower, take it to them, the grower signs up for it, then the company now can say we’ve influenced X acres in North Dakota.”
Some of the companies involved in this program are the Walmart Foundation, General Mills, Pepsico, King Arthur Baking, The Hershey Company, Anheuser-Busch InBev, and Unilever.
