Field to Market: The Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture® is one of 34 organizations to receive a Conservation Innovation Grant (CIG) from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (USDA-NRCS).
Field to Market is a nonprofit organization that exists to unite the industry to advance agriculture supply chain sustainability through pre-competitive collaboration, science-based metrics, and innovative program solutions. The organization plans to use the grant to support the implementation of field-level water quality estimates and practice comparison for farmers at regional and national scales.
The grant will support integration of the Soil and Water Assessment Tool Plus (SWAT+), a model developed by USDA’s Agricultural Research Service and Texas A&M AgriLife Research, into the Water Quality metric of the Fieldprint® Platform. Farmers will be able to estimate how conservation practices may reduce nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment losses from their fields and compare options before making management decisions.
“Farmers are making important investments in conservation, and we need credible, science-based tools to better measure and demonstrate the impact of those efforts at scale,” said Carrie Vollmer-Sanders, President, Field to Market. “Building on nearly two decades of partnership with USDA-NRCS, this grant will help bring water quality estimates to more farmers, connecting conservation practices on the farm with environmental outcomes across the agricultural supply chain.”
With the Fieldprint Platform, value chain partners can measure sustainability impacts across eight environmental indicators, allowing partners and producers to assess performance, understand opportunities for improvement, and track outcomes over time.
“This grant will help strengthen the science behind the water quality insights provided by the Fieldprint Platform,” said Paul Hishmeh, Vice President of Science and Technology, Field to Market. “Farmers and their partners throughout the value chain will get field-level water quality estimates built on USDA models, delivered through a platform they already use and trust.”
Field to Market will work with Precision Conservation Management (PCM), a program of the Illinois Corn Growers Association, as the primary demonstration partner. PCM will lead farmer engagement, provide technical feedback, and test the tool on working farms.
The award comes through USDA-NRCS’s CIG program, which funds partners that develop and test new tools to help producers put conservation into practice. In the latest round, USDA-NRCS awarded up to $50 million for 16 CIG On-Farm Trials projects and up to $15 million for 18 CIG Classic projects. CIG Classic projects develop conservation tools and strategies for working lands, including market-based approaches to resource challenges.
“Conservation Innovation Grants help turn innovative ideas into practical conservation solutions for America’s farmers and ranchers,” said USDA-NRCS Chief Colton L. Buckley. “By investing in these new technologies, NRCS is leveraging partners to develop new tools, technologies, and strategies that support next generation conservation efforts to keep working lands in working hands for generations to come. These grants will lay the foundation to help producers improve their operations, conserve natural resources, and strengthen the future of American agriculture.”
