The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has affected almost every aspect of normal business in the Delta.
According to Savanna Cox, Agricultural Technology Specialist with GreenPoint AG, in these unprecedented times, it is also causing farmers to think about resilience more than ever, and how to keep their businesses and the food supply strong.
To help local farmers save money and keep their land healthy and resilient, GreenPoint AG has recently launched a new ag-tech program, GreenPoint AG Sustain.
The program offers farmers in the area acre-by-acre metrics on their environmental impact and helps them to develop customized conservation plans for their operations.
The program focuses on maximizing a farmer’s return on investment for conservation, including linking to incentive programs and demonstrating the potential cost savings of implementing certain practices. Cox said there are a lot of opportunities out there and if for some reason the grower doesn't like the program, then they don't have to continue it.
Although GreenPoint AG reportedly has many customers in this area, Cox said they do not currently have any growers that are involved in the sustain program.
She said, "The GreenPoint AG Sustain program focuses on protecting the natural resources, but also while protecting grower's profitability and them being able to farm in the future. We don't want to ask the growers to do anything that's going to have a negative effect on their bottom line dollar."
Cox said they don't ask growers to do anything that would not be profitable for their farms. "Which in turn will help them be farmers for a long time," she said. Cox said they would work with their sellers and the local AG technology specialist to connect with their customers as well as other growers who are not their customers.
Sarah Williams, marketing manager for Greenpoint AG, said, "We have a full lineup of row crop products, anything from seed crop protection, plant nutrition and seed care all the way over to the services side of things. So, soil sampling, tissue sampling, helping with the AG technology specialist group they help integrate technology onto the farm." Williams said sometimes the farmers are already adept to technology and at other times they have those that need additional help.
With social distancing and other precautionary measures in place, Cox said she's had to resort to technological means such as Zoom calls to confer with their clients. "We're still working very hard to work with our sustained growers to collect their information and make their own farm adjustments."
She asserts that agriculture sometimes gets a “black eye” and said that while farmers in this area are not experiencing technological regulations as in some other states, there is a potential for it.
"So, if we are collecting information and have data to show that we are being sustainable in agriculture and each field has a different approach to make it as sustainable as it can be and also be profitable to the grower at the same time, then we're going to be one step ahead of those. And it's not about making all of these changes on your farm, it's about let's see what you're already doing and let's make some small adjustments by field, here and there, and the goal is to see that there is a profitability increase as well as conservation on your farm.”
She continued, "We've seen really good success with growers seeing just the value in that data saying, 'okay, hey I'm being a sustainable grower."
Cox maintains that, "GreenPoint as a whole just sees this as an opportunity to provide a service to our growers to help mitigate some of these misconceptions and also to educate the consumer about where their foods are coming from. This is to help tell their story. The data is the growers’ and we don't share that information without their permission."
She said there is never any personal information shared and it's all aggregated to a county level.
In addition to their relationship to the farmers, GreenPoint also has a focus that is consumer related. GreenPoint's position is that more consumers want to know how their food was grown, and they care deeply about the environment. So, as food companies respond to that demand, they are asking farmers to demonstrate continuous improvement and to share more detailed data about the impact of their practices.
The sustainability program will help area farmers respond to that call, and better position their businesses as demand for this information grows in the future.
GreenPoint’s local program also connects to a nationwide effort by Truterra, the sustainability solutions business of Land O’Lakes, reportedly one of the nation’s largest farmer-owned cooperatives.
Cox said one of her main focuses is, “Promoting agriculture and telling the right stories and not letting somebody else tell it for us.”
GreenPoint AG is an agricultural retailer in Indianola, with locations across the Southeast and ArkLaMiss area.
