What This Year's Slow Start to Planting Means for Nitrogen Applications, and a Visit with National Corn Growers Association VP Nathan Fields

Farmers are the original conservationists.

But over the last 20 years, the agriculture industry has gotten much better at telling its sustainability story.

And one organization that's helped lead the way is the National Corn Growers Association.

So in this episode, we talk to Nathan Fields, NCGA Vice President of Production and Sustainability, about how the association is working to protect the future of agriculture by putting grower-driven solutions front-and-center in the national discussion. Nathan also lays out NCGA's sustainability goals: land use efficiency, reduced soil erosion, water use efficiency, energy efficiency, and reduction of greenhouse gases.

Plus, Tom and Sally have an update from the Nutrien Ag Solutions retail team out in the field, and it sounds like poor conditions are causing a late start to the planting season. It means many growers will have to adjust their nitrogen application plans, and we'll discuss how.

As a result, the deadline to apply for the Nutrien Ag Solutions Sustainable Nitrogen Outcomes program has been extended to May 31.

Learn more about Sustainable Nitrogen Outcomes and see if you qualify.

Episode Transcript

Nathan Fields:

Really, when our growers looked at sustainability and how they wished to define it, they really looked at what they're doing, the intent of what they're doing, what their fathers did and their grandfathers did before them. And that is to leave the land in a condition for their daughters and their sons to be able to farm into the future. So it boils down to this continuous improvement, how could we leave the land in a better place that we can continue to produce on this land and can give back to the food system?

Dusty Weis:

Welcome to The Future. Faster. A sustainable agriculture podcast by Nutrien Ag Solutions, with our very own Tom Daniel, Director, North America Retail and Grower Sustainable Ag, and Dr. Sally Flis, Senior Manager, North America Sustainable Ag and Carbon. This is your opportunity to learn about the next horizon in sustainable agriculture for growers, for partners, for the planet. To us, it's not about changing what's always worked. It's about continuing to do the little things that make a big impact.

Dusty Weis:

On this week's episode, Nathan Fields, Vice President of Production and Sustainability at the National Corn Growers Association joins us to discuss how the Association has helped drive the conversation around sustainability, both in the farm fields of its 40,000 dues paying members, and on Capitol Hill. Plus, an update on the slow start to this year's planting season. But if you haven't yet, make sure you're subscribed to this podcast in your favorite app. Also, make sure you follow Nutrien Ag Solutions on Facebook or Instagram.

Dusty Weis:

I'm Dusty Weis, and it's time once again to introduce Tom Daniel and Sally Flis. And Tom and Sally, I actually just got in from a sit out in the woods chasing the great eastern turkey around the hills of Wisconsin here. And not a whole lot of luck. It's really cold outside. And this is a time of year when it's not normally this cold. And I've got to imagine that just like it's given turkey hunters fits, it's given growers the fits as well. So what are you guys hearing from the retail team in the fields about the conditions that growers are encountering as they're trying to get out there and start planting, and how's that going to impact the decisions that growers have to make in the weeks and months ahead?

Tom Daniel:

So Sally, I'm hearing a lot on the weather. It seems like weather is always the major impact of agriculture. West coast is way too dry. East coast is way too wet, and we're way too wet in the middle. And it's cold. Dusty was talking about it being cold in Wisconsin. Well, it's cold in lots of the area. We had frost here in Kentucky two nights ago, so we're still cold. So a lot of impact on agriculture right now. I was at a management meeting this week and they said we're at least two, and in some places, three weeks behind on planting. So a lot of decisions are starting to change a little bit at the farm level. What are some of the things you're hearing about?

Sally Flis:

Yeah, Tom. Here in New York, this is our first day in 10 days without snow. So pretty cold up here. I don't think we quite frosted last night, but there's frost warnings for tonight. So I'm sure we're behind up here, but you think about a lot of that nitrogen timing is a big part of what happens in the spring around some of the corn planting in the US. Can growers get out on fields, whether it's with manure source of nitrogen or it's with a commercial source of nitrogen to get those pre-plant applications done? And so how does that impact? It's got a chain reaction through the season of how that impacts management decisions down the line.

Sally Flis:

One thing we've done is we extended our enrollment deadline on our Sustainable Nitrogen Outcomes Program to at least the end of May, and can continue to play around with that deadline as conditions in the field change, or as we have different opportunities that arise. But for now, we've at least extended until the end of May to give growers that opportunity to reevaluate their nitrogen management decisions. I know you were mentioning the other day, Tom, that in your area, a lot of the nitrogen that traditionally would go on pre-plant is not going to make it on. They're just going to roll right into planting.

Tom Daniel:

Yeah. And we don't have a choice. Normally, in my geography, we'll be planting corn the last week of March, first week of April. And now, we're first week of May, and still just very few acres are in the ground. So the planning date's going to be more important than the nitrogen date. And we always have the opportunity to come back and sidedress, Y-drops, inject, or whatever nitrogen later in the season after the corn gets out the ground. So a lot of the nitrogen decisions around rates and what they're going to use now are going to be based upon the timing of when the corn's out the ground.

Tom Daniel:

So I can see a lot of cases where reduced nitrogen rates are going to be more of a common place than we might have seen in the past, simply because we're going to be late planted and we're going to be looking at side dress applications. So if you've got a grower, or if there's a grower out there listening to this podcast, how does he become engaged in the Sustainable Nitrogen Outcomes Program with Nutrien? And then let's talk about the value that has both to our retail organization, plus, let's talk about how the grower can benefit from that. But give me an idea, what is a simple enrollment process right now?

Sally Flis:

So the quickest way to do it, Tom, right now is to go to the Sustainable Nitrogen Outcomes enrollment and information page. And there'll be a link for that in the show notes. That's the first place to start. There, you just submit some pretty simple information about what you're growing and if you're interested in making a nitrogen rate reduction, and if you're currently a Nutrien customer. And then from there, we've got some customer success people, our regional sustainable ag managers, and our crop consultants in the field that'll follow up with that grower to get them through the rest of that enrollment process. But that's really probably the easiest way to get started a little bit. And Tom, I was going to ask you a question on that value piece. I know we've had a bit of press coverage, Successful Farming had an article in about the Sustainable Nitrogen Outcomes Program, and I did two or three other media interviews last week, where that was a big question. Why is a company like Nutrien and Nutrien Ag Solutions running a program that asks growers to reduce nitrogen rates?

Tom Daniel:

Well, one of the main reasons, obviously, when we talk about sustainability, we talk about doing more with less. That's always one of the main subject matters. But also, when we talk about climate change and some of those type of issues as a company, nitrogen fertilizer and fertilizer in general, but specifically nitrogen fertilizer, creates a significant footprint for CO2 equivalents. So when we're trying to manage the amount of CO2 or carbon release that we have as a company, the reduction of nitrogen fertilizer used at the farm level is a big piece of that.

Tom Daniel:

If we can reduce the amount of nitrogen we use to produce a bushel of corn, and you'll notice I say to produce a bushel of corn, our ultimate goal is always to produce food. We have to be the ones driving food production for this world, but we also want to do it in the most efficient and optimized way we can. So these type programs allow us to gain revenue or opportunities for the farmer to reduce rates. And at the same time, we're helping initiate a process toward our own carbon footprint as a company and as farmers in our geography. So it's important from an environmental point of view that we start looking for ways to produce more bushels of corn using less nitrogen. And this is just one way to get us started in that process.

Sally Flis:

So Tom, I'm going to follow up with the favorite question that I always get from other potential partners in the field and have gotten from some of the media interviews. Why should we trust a company like Nutrien and the crop consultants that work for Nutrien to help implement practices like this with growers?

Tom Daniel:

Well, one of the things we have to remember is we all live on this great world together. In fact, we just celebrated, not too many days ago, Earth Day. That's all about how do we conserve the resources of this great country that we live in, this great world that we live in? And if we don't look at things like regenerative ag and those type of things that actually build back the resources that we have of soil, water, and air, those are the things that become legacy opportunities for the next generation. We're thinking about, how do we maintain this agriculture cycle in future generations as this world grows? And we start looking at the over all population growth of what we're looking at by 2050. We are going to be responsible for feeding this world. This is a big burden on agriculture today to look at what's in front of us.

Tom Daniel:

And we believe, as Nutrien, that we have to start taking the initiative. We're one of the largest input providers of agriculture in the world. We need to be the leader in making sure that the environmental changes that are occurring, that we can help influence those and create a better resource for the next generation. It's our responsibility.

Tom Daniel:

Sally, let me ask you a question around the Sustainable Nitrogen Outcomes Program. Uniquely, this particular program actually has an approved protocol in the system today where we can actually generate a true, what we call a scope one offset. I think that's kind of a neat deal. We're getting to the place that we're actually going to be able to show where we've actually been able to degenerate an outcome. What's your thoughts on that right now?

Sally Flis:

I'm pretty excited about that, Tom. I mean, there's a couple other small projects that have gotten that far around this nitrogen management protocol with the Climate Action Reserve. But even though we don't have as many tons as we would've liked, when we get through verification, we will have the largest number of emission reduction tons from our 2021 project that have been verified in the US. So I'm pretty excited to get past that milestone and really show what we're capable of doing as agriculture, because that really hasn't been a hurdle that anyone's made it over just yet.

Tom Daniel:

Let me ask you a question, Sally, real quick. You're out in the field a lot. In fact, you spend some time out in the West, out in Montana and some different areas not too many weeks ago. And I know you had a lot of interaction with our west coast rep, Carson Bretts, but y'all actually had some really good contacts with some of our key crop consultants in those areas. Can you tell me, how did you see the interaction between the crop consultants and the growers they were working with when they were really talking about not only the SNO project, but also other carbon type programs too? Did you see excitement or what did you see out of those meetings?

Sally Flis:

So the growers and the crop consultants on average are excited for what they can participate in. And I think one of the things that they like about our programs is we're offering a variety of opportunities for growers. So we're not trying to pigeonhole growers into, "Do these two practices. We'll pay you for doing these two practices. And that's the only opportunity you have." We're really trying to design and deploy programs where we can accommodate growers that only want to do a smaller change, like nitrogen management, to growers that we talked to when we were in Montana about totally changing their crop rotation and moving away from some of the practices that they've used in a really dry area like that for as long as they've been farming. So it's exciting to see what growers are interested in trying, and being able to help support them with programs like this for payments through alternative sources versus some of the traditional conservation programs out there and start getting down this pathway that benefits the grower, us and potentially other downstream partners.

Tom Daniel:

So Sally, when you think about that, I know you were working out in the Montana area. When y'all were talking to growers out there, specifically, you talk about changing their entire process. In other words, they may have been using fallow in part of their rotation, maybe looking at cover crops or maybe looking at nitrogen management as one of their solutions. It goes back to our discussion that we at Nutrien, we talk about being a solutions company. And in this case, it's a whole acre solution, where you're managing the acre, over multiple crop rotations in multiple years, to get to a designated outcome, which in this case could have been a carbon sequestered acre, or it could have been a reduced nitrogen rate to generate a scope one offset. But it gets back to that discussion about looking at these acres holistically, not looking at them just single practices through the process, but how do we manage it over a longer period of time? And I know you're having lots of discussions around rotational changes, biodiversity. All of those are part of these carbon programs in North America.

Sally Flis:

Yeah, those are the discussions we had and it was really nice to get up there and talk through those different scenarios so that we're really representing what the practice change is that the growers are making accurately, because we try and push things into those two traditional practices of cover crops or change in tillage. And really, what those growers that are eliminating a fallow period from a field are doing is not a cover crop. They're changing their crop rotation. And it does add some biodiversity. It adds some potentially nitrogen fixation to the system. So it's a bigger change than just planting a cover crop at a time. It's really a whole system change and changes how they need to manage that acre 365 days a year.

Tom Daniel:

So in the SNO program right now, the Sustainable Nitrogen Outcomes Program, what are the focus crops we should be focused on right now, getting enrolled into the program?

Sally Flis:

Corn silage, corn grain, cotton, and spring wheat would be the primary focuses right now. We can do winter wheat depending on where the grower sits in that rotation. We may not look to enroll that acre now, but if they know they're already thinking about nitrogen change for the 2022, 2023 winter wheat crop, we can get those acres enrolled right now, too.

Dusty Weis:

Well, Tom and Sally, a great reminder that what goes into the field and what goes on in the field, there are two real key pillars of getting sustainable outcomes. But while that plays out in a local ecosystem, it also requires advocacy on a national level. And so coming up in a moment, we're going to talk to an executive with one organization that's been at the head of that effort, advocating for growers for decades, Nathan Fields, VP of Production and Sustainability at the National Corn Growers Association will join us. That's coming up in a moment here on The Future. Faster.

Dusty Weis:

This is The Future. Faster., a sustainable agriculture podcast by Nutrien Ag Solutions. I'm Dusty Weis along with Tom Daniel and Sally Flis, and we're joined now by Nathan Fields, Vice President of Production and Sustainability at the National Corn Growers Association. Nathan, it's like world's collide and forming here, but thanks for joining us. First and foremost, among our wide range of guests, it's become clear that everyone defines sustainability just a little bit different. So from your perspective at the Corn Growers Association, how does NCGA define sustainability?

Nathan Fields:

It's a very good question. I think all of us that work in the sustainability field really dread that moment of every meeting that we go to, where everyone devolves into, "How do we define sustainability?" So it's a tough thing, and it is variable, and that variability does offer some power. But really, when our growers looked at sustainability and how they wished to define it, they really looked at what they're doing, the intent of what they're doing, what their fathers did and their grandfathers did before them. And that is to create a farming practice that they can pass down the family. For their daughters, for their sons, for everything that they've been working on in agriculture is to try and preserve that land.

Nathan Fields:

So to do that, there obviously has to be an economic component that the farm is going to be a good going concern, but then to leave the land in a condition for their daughters and their sons to be able to farm into the future. So it is that continuous improvement. It is that learning and adapting to technology. It is the pressures of the market, pressing them to become more responsible for their farm on many different levels. And the first one that we were taking a look at here is obviously with some of the environmental sustainability pieces. So it boils down to this continuous improvement. How can we leave the land in a better place that we can continue to produce on this land and can give back to the food system?

Sally Flis:

So I visited with your sustainability committee a couple of times about projects and programs that we have going at Nutrien Ag Solutions in St. Louis towards the end of last year. So I've looked up and reviewed the sustainability statements that you guys have put out on the website. But for our listeners, could you share what your sustainability goals are for the Association and why you even decided to set sustainability goals as an Association?

Nathan Fields:

Sure. Absolutely. So our sustainability goals for the Association really revolve around the metrics that were put forth by field to market, which is looking at land use efficiency, reduced soil erosion, increased irrigation, water use efficiency, generally water use efficiency, energy efficiency, greenhouse gases. So we set it around those because those are measurable things. There are reports that come out around that. So the tracking of that is going to be relatively easy, but achieving them is going to be a whole other case.

Nathan Fields:

But we wouldn't be able to do that. We don't have the resources to survey every acre of land out there. So we wanted to go with, what being published by the USDA and buy the associations out there? But to that end, why did we decide to engage in the sustainability conversation? Why did we decide to make these goals? Well, I could sum it up in sustainability speak and say, we interfaced with a whole new marketplace back in the early 2000s.

Nathan Fields:

Corn growers were part of the food production system. We became part of the energy production system. And that put a whole different lens on what growing corn meant to the public in the US, and really globally. When you enter into those new markets, you have to understand what that does for your social license. And that social license being, are you doing and producing the things that you're doing in a way that is responsible? And growers really enjoyed a broad social license when they were in the food production system, but when it came to energy, that's a whole different case.

Nathan Fields:

So not being the trusted grower that was here to provide for the public was a new world that they entered into. And there was a lot of defensiveness, but really coming out of it, growers have [inaudible 00:18:08] and said, "Okay, how can we tell our story a lot better? Because we do feel, and we are deeply, deeply ingrained on the fact that we're taking care of the land. We are the original conservationists. How do we get this message out?" And this is as this whole sustainability thing was exploding up and down the value chain. They said, "Well, okay. This is our pathway to tell this. This is not something that we should run away from, something that we should run towards." It was a very, very interesting and I think good growing evolution of how growers have looked at conservation and sustainability.

Sally Flis:

So Tom and I always talk about how sustainability is local. Everybody's got a little bit different and you mentioned it talking about, what's the definition of sustainability? It's a little bit different for everybody. And when we get down to the local levels, it changes based on all the environmental factors that impact it. So National Corn Growers is a large Association, but every state or region has their own corn grower association. So how do you guys work back and forth at that local level up to the national level to meet these co-owned goals for sustainability?

Nathan Fields:

So that is one of the powers of NCGA, it’s different from some of the other checkoff organizations that are out there, in so much that we are our federation of our states. The states are the checkoffs themselves and national serves at the pleasure of the states. So to that end, everything is always local, is always grassroots on the corn side of the equation. And I could tell you that when we have our DC staff out there looking at what people are thinking about national water standards or anything like that, it instantly explodes into, "It doesn't work here." Every place is unique. And so to that end, we are really set up to deal with that locality of issues. So what Iowa Corn Growers and Iowa is doing in reaction to the Des Moines Waterworks cases and whatnot is a little bit different than what's going on in Colorado or Kansas.

Nathan Fields:

So we do have that ability. We do work as a federation of these state organizations more often than not to address local issues. And when we're talking about fundraising and we're talking about trying to get federal dollars to growers for conservation work that can improve these sustainability pieces, it always comes down to, we need that flexibility. What's going to work in the upper white watershed in Indiana is not going to work in Arkansas. We have to keep that flexibility open. So that's how we really try to approach this. We want to work as a group. It's not always clean and easy. You can't just make a national policy and move forward. You really have to look at all the different states, all the different regions, watershed by watershed, and say, "Hey, what works here? What can we invest in? And let's keep on moving that needle."

Tom Daniel:

So Nathan, I noticed, as I looked at the press release from the National Corn Growers Association, it appears that you had goal forming sessions to get these announcements or these environmental standards put together. That was actually a farmer led group. Can you give us an idea looking inside those meetings? What were some of the reoccurring concerns or focuses that those grow groups came up with? What were some of the things that they were concerned about?

Nathan Fields:

So it was an evolution of understanding what sustainability goals mean, what that means, how to package and present this to the grower community, which we're still working on. But in the end, the big theme that the growers were focused on is pragmatism. We were talking about with the sustainability goals that are out there, we've seen some of the companies in the consumer products/goods area really making incredibly bold claims about net zero by this year, being carbon negative by X number of years after that.

Nathan Fields:

So all these bold statements, and there is a time and a place for making really big, bold statements. Like the moonshot and everything else, we don't know exactly how we're going to do it, but we're going to do it. And that does provide innovation, that does provide Mother Necessity, as you mentioned. So you do get that trend, but as a corn growing community, as a group of growers that wanted to be and reestablish trust with the public, they wanted to stay very pragmatic with their goals.

Nathan Fields:

And so we looked at stretch goals, we looked at things that we really thought could be achieved with current technology that's out there, just at higher implementation. And they said, "No, we're going to deliver on these goals. And hopefully, we could deliver on these goals in half the timeframe that we put out. But we're going to definitely do something that doesn't make us look as though we were greenwashing in 10 years. That we could achieve it, move on, and continue to move forward." That is that continuous improvement mindset. So it was really an interesting, refreshing take on what we had experienced in the whole sustainability space of all these big, hairy, audacious goals. And they said, "No, we're going to deliver on these."

Tom Daniel:

So we talk about the farmers coming out of those sessions wanting to be pragmatic. And I appreciate you using new words for me. So that's a new one for me. No, I'm just kidding. But anyway, when we talk about that, how do the growers really look at not only the goals that we see some of these consumer products groups that are placing out there, which we think are they're big goals, big goals. But not only that, but we see farmers being put in the limelight as being the solution to climate today. I mean, how do they feel about that being put into that type of limelight?

Nathan Fields:

They feel empowered. I would say that they've always felt that they were a huge solution in many different ways. I think that there's a nobility into food production and sustaining society. So all of a sudden, bearing the responsibility of initiatives that are looking at mitigating climate change. Being the solution, I think the growers are really encouraged by that. Now, it's also a really big job and it doesn't come without cost. And we are all business people here. So I think they also saw this as not just a noble piece and something that they could achieve on, but if there is a real market push for this, then this is an opportunity that's not just producing food, it's producing solutions on a broader scale for the climate. So in the positive sense, I think that's how they saw it. And some of more of the bigger pictures, I think there's still some understanding that needs to develop on what those opportunities are. But overall, we're really hoping that this is a sustained opportunity for us.

Sally Flis:

So as we touched on earlier, sustainability is local, but it's also a community moving all of agriculture forward and sustainability, or carbon, or whatever our goals are. What other partners, or how do you guys at Corn Growers work with partners in the field to help achieve different goals around sustainability or other policy challenges around sustainability or climate that you see currently?

Nathan Fields:

There's definitely a lot of layers to different partnerships that we can pull together. I will go ahead and start more in the association type space. So we do work with a lot of different other trade associations on sustainability pieces. One of the key relationships that we have is with the National Pork Board, United Soybean Board, where we're looking at ways that we can work with the USDA to get dollars on the ground for growers to adopt new practices to achieve some of these sustainability goals. Pork puts some fantastic goals that are out there and they recognize that 50% of their greenhouse gas footprint is their feed products. And so that's a lot of responsibility for us. So we do work with a lot of other trade associations. Beef has their own round table. Poultry has their own round table. And then there is a whole very complicated dynamic complex around the biofuels piece as well and what low carbon fuels look like in California, versus the Midwest, versus international trade. So yeah, those are a lot of the avenues that we see of folks that we can work with on these sustainability goals.

Nathan Fields:

Now, what we do see is a lot of very active programs that have really developed nicely over the past few years with companies like Nutrien, with some of the other big ag retailers and providers that are out there. We try to stay in the pre-competitive space. So we're not here to pick winners or losers, but we also are really wanting to see these programs succeed. The intent of those programs are in the same line with what we're trying to do, and it is really lowering risk for growers out there. So we do look for partnerships in that way.

Nathan Fields:

I know our state organizations, when they're looking watershed by watershed, they do partner with entities downstream from them on direct funding for different kinds of grants and matching funds to get conservation more widespread. So there's just a lot of different layers that we can address and a lot of different opportunities that we're very, very open to. But as a national organization, we definitely stay in the pre-competitive space and we're here to promote all the good that all the groups that are doing out there.

Tom Daniel:

So Nathan, that leads to my next question that I had. So in my experience, working with all the grower-based associations, you guys are very much the advocates for the grower. I mean, that is your role and that's what you're called to do. But as retail, we actually have direct engagement with the grower and we work for that trusted advisor relationship. As I tell everybody, we don't just have that relationship. We have to earn that relationship. So we have that trusted advisor relationship. How can we find ways for companies like ours, Nutrien Ag Solutions, how can we team up and make sure that where we're trying to help the grower navigate in outcome-based solutions and different practices that we're implementing on the farm, whether it be technology leads or whatever it may be, how can we make sure that we're aligned with the associations and what you're trying to accomplish too? Because both of us are trying to drive sustainability. So I think it's great for both of us to be on the same platform when we're driving that.

Nathan Fields:

No, absolutely. I made reference before to some of the pre-competitive spaces that we try to work in. And so to really expand upon that, getting in and working in coalitions where you're actually working with some of your competitors is really been a strong avenue that we've seen for common goals. And we led the marketing piece and the business piece and the decisions made by our growers to you. That is absolutely a service that we do not want to enter into. We're not here to help make those decisions. We're here to help create the opportunities for companies like Nutrien. In my experience in the past, I worked on a lot of access and regulation around Bt corn.

Nathan Fields:

And when you are talking about the regulation of a product like that, we had to bring in, and the government actually to a certain extent, requires that the big players out there now, Bayer, Corteva, Syngenta, the Big C players, they all sit around at a table. These are strident competitors, but they sit around at a table, much like we're sitting around right now, and they talk about these solutions in a pre-competitive space. So finding those areas where we can work across industry, across folks that are all service providers is great. And then when it comes to what avenue, what package that growers decide to move forward with, what software, whatever else, that's where you guys get to shine and make those relationships and solidify those relationships. But really do enjoy that opportunity of trying to find some pre-competitive space, understand those boundaries and move forward.

Dusty Weis:

Nathan, you talked about reframing the conversation and telling growers' sustainability story and just really helping get that across. And certainly, that's a story that needs to be told to consumers. That's a story that gets told at a retail level. But one place where I know that the corn growers have been very active in telling that story as well, and you mentioned it, is in Washington, DC, particularly your DC team. I know that this has been something that's been important and front and center for you guys, but how receptive, particularly in this era of political polarization, how receptive have they been to that message in DC and how much headway have you been able to make there?

Nathan Fields:

It's been absolutely fantastic. The work that the sustainability group had done within NCGA really laid a great foundation. And that foundation was really initially focused at the market sectors that really are very receptive to that. So that's the general public, that's the sustainability goals, but then also the policy makers that are out there. Phase 2, 3, 4, and so on, is going to be understanding how to message this to the growers so we can impact and deliver on these sustainability goals. But it has really paid off huge dividends with what we've been able to advertise and really market to the policy makers in Washington, DC.

Nathan Fields:

We've had a corn reputation campaign that's been up and running for several months in the Beltway. If you've flown in and out of National Airport, Reagan National Airport, sometimes you have been inundated in stereo plus with all of the sustainability goals and improvements that we have been able to study and publish through our partners. And it has had an impact. Earlier today, we were just talking about how we have moved some of these needles of perception within the Beltway and within policy makers, their staff, and the federal government. So yes, working on these things, marketing it, making these goals, doing what you said you're going to do, and following through, it does have an impact. And if you message that right, you do see the results.

Dusty Weis:

Well, and it's great to see that needle moving and it's always fun to see the new and creative ways that you guys find to do that. So this has been an awesome conversation. We appreciate you making the time for it here. Nathan Fields, Vice President of Production and Sustainability at the National Corn Growers Association. Thank you for joining us on this episode of The Future. Faster.

Dusty Weis:

That is going to conclude this edition of The Future. Faster., the pursuit of sustainable success with Nutrien Ag Solutions. New episodes arrive every other week, so make sure you subscribe in your favorite app and join us again soon. Visit futurefaster.com to learn more. The Future. Faster. podcast is brought to you by Nutrien Ag Solutions, with executive producer Connor Erwin and editing by Larry Kilgore III. And it's produced by Podcamp Media, branded podcast production for businesses, podcampmedia.com. For Nutrien Ag Solutions, thanks for listening. I'm Dusty Weis.