Connect and Share
Helping Growers Find the Right Opportunities.
Agricultural producers have no shortage of opportunities to introduce or expand conservation practices to their operations. The availability of information, technology and monetary support continues to grow. The challenge for farmers and ranchers can be finding the right opportunity and best information for their specific needs and goals.
Enter the Conservation Technology Information Center (CTIC). For more than 40 years, CTIC has worked to be a trusted resource for agriculture.
Executor Director Ryan Heiniger says the nonprofit CTIC — which started as a bridge solely focused on soil between private industry and agriculture — builds strength from across the agribusiness, commodity and conservation worlds. CTIC, which is supported by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service and other public entities, has broadened its focus to also address water, air and wildlife.
"A group of leaders came together and said, ‘We have the technology emerging, we have more information and science. Let’s come together and further support farmers and ranchers to try to reduce soil erosion.’"
It both leads and participates in projects aimed at advancing voluntary and incentive-based conservation in the agricultural industry. CTIC works to provide practical, proven practices that ultimately support productivity and profitability.
Collaborative efforts include CTIC’s contract with Farmers for Soil Health (FSH) to be a service provider in three of the 20 states where FSH supports the adoption of sustainable growing practices, including through payments that support producers during their adoption and expansion of cover crops to boost soil health.
CTIC has three full-time soil health specialists in Minnesota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. The specialists were hired through a USDA Partnerships for Climate Smart Commodities grant awarded to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to administer FSH. They provide education and promote participation in the FSH program. Additionally, CTIC has partnered with nine producers with extensive, first-hand knowledge in soil health and cover cropping and deployed them as Cover Crop Coaches — to also answer producer questions.
“The goal is to reduce barriers, or de-risk the practice, by sharing information because, let’s be honest, there are opportunities for things to go awry,” Heiniger says.
"Having these farmers who have been there and done that before and who are passionate about sharing their expertise ultimately makes farmers enrolling in Farmers for Soil Health more successful and reduces that learning curve for this practice."
CTIC also has its own, long-standing educational programs. This includes its annual Conservation in Action Tour, which is being held in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in 2025. For the past 18 years, CTIC has brought producers, agronomists and other advisors together to share workable solutions for making operations more sustainable and profitable.
How CTIC shares information has evolved, just as its areas of expertise have expanded. But the original purpose of CTIC — to collect and share knowledge about conservation in agriculture —remains unchanged.
This past November, CTIC launched the Conservation Connector, a first-of-its-kind directory of conservation programs that agricultural producers can use to find financial and technical assistance.
The connector app is partially funded through a USDA Partnerships for Climate Smart Commodities grant to Wolfe’s Neck Center and other contributors include The Nature Conservancy and Walton Family Foundation. Producers and industry organizations, including FCSAmerica, provided guidance on the design to make it as useful as possible.
The directory includes government, private and not-for-profit programs, serving as the one place where users can search for programs by crop, conservation practice and geography. The goal is to help producers quickly zero in on programs that are available in their area and fit their operation or technical needs, Heiniger says.
Many partners collaborated to ensure the directory is robust, Heiniger says.
About 200 service providers were listed on day one. “This number is expected to grow daily as more people become aware of it,” he says. “And we certainly expect this prototype to gain additional functionality.”
"The industry identified the critical importance of having this information. Producers have an almost overwhelming number of opportunities."
Already, locating conservation or sustainability opportunities is easier. As usage picks up, Heiniger says he envisions a producer sitting down with an advisor, such as their Farm Credit financial officer, and digging into the information available to them to make a decision that improves both their operation and profits.
For more on how we and our customer-owners support a more sustainable agriculture industry, read our 2024 Sustainability Report.
