Netafim's Corporate Partnership Program

This is Tim Hammerich of the Ag Information Network with your Farm of the Future Report.

Netafim, the precision agriculture business of Orbia, is launching a first-of-its-kind Corporate Partnership Program to drive funding for farmers to address environmental and water challenges. President Netafim North America President Mike Hemman says corporations want sustainable drip irrigation technology adopted in their supply chains.

Hemman… “What we're seeing is a lot more interest from farmers in adopting drip irrigation. And traditionally, where drip irrigation has been adopted has been crops that I'll call, for lack of a better term, high value crops. What we're seeing is a lot more interest in crops like corn in crops like alfalfa in cotton, where we know that there are opportunities to solve issues such as water scarcity, but more importantly even increase yield because of delivery of water at the right time and place, delivery of fertilizer, et cetera. But the challenge has been the CapEx hurdle. So what we've done is we've created this corporate partnership program where we can help to connect farmers with corporate funding that helps them to offset the cost of the irrigation system, similar to what you might do with a government program like EQIP.”

The program connects Fortune 100 companies with corporate sustainability commitments (such as Google and Keurig Dr. Pepper) to farmers who want to adopt precision irrigation systems to significantly conserve water.