Many food companies have become increasingly more interested in what part they can play in building healthier soils. If they’re in it for the long haul and truly want to develop partnerships with farmers, it will take an intentional and dedicated approach to collaborating with growers and their trusted advisors to figure out what might be right in each individual situation.

“What if we all just worked on this together and used this great organization out of Vermont called the Sustainable Food Lab that works with all these companies regularly? How about we bring all these ideas together and come up with one program for the entire state of North Dakota? And let's not base it on these ideas of just paying farmers to adopt practices, but let's actually make those practices stick.” - Dr. Abbey Wick

That’s exactly what the Trusted Advisor Partnership is seeking to do. In this episode you’ll hear about how a group of food and beverage companies is working together with the mission of introducing new soil health building practices on 500,000 acres in North Dakota in the next five years. To make that happen, they have enlisted the help of Dr. Abbey Wick, the Sustainable Food Lab and crop consultants like Dr. Lee Briese and Jason Hanson, to lead certified crop advisors through the process of trying these practices. This is a great episode for understanding how food companies can work together with farmers to create lasting change.

“I think if we can get these companies to work together like they are, the CCA has the knowledge of all those programs and can pick the best one for the grower, take it to them, then the grower signs up for it and then the company now can say we've influenced “X” acres in North Dakota.” - Dr. Abbey Wick

This Week on Soil Sense: