Farmers, Meet Buyers
Opening New Markets for Sustainable Producers.
Farmers for Soil Health is an example of agricultural producers working together to create a market in which they are rewarded for conservation practices. It is one of the first initiatives that grew out of a collaboration between the National Corn Growers Association, National Pork Board and United Soybean Board, resulting in a USDA Partnerships for Climate Smart Commodities grant — the second largest to date — in 2023.
The program has two key components: Payments to producers to offset some of the cost of starting or expanding conservation practices and an online Marketplace, where producers can sell their sustainable commodities direct to companies interested in rewarding them for their efforts.
FCSAmerica and Frontier Farm Credit were part of the Corporate Advisory Board that helped develop the Marketplace. We asked Ben West, head of Farmers for Soil Health, and Christy Melhart Slay, leader of the Corporate Advisory Board, to talk about the program’s first year of operation. In addition to their roles at Farmers for Soil Health, West is with the University of Tennessee Extension and Slay is CEO of The Sustainability Consortium.
Ben West:
We’ve gotten really good feedback from the farmers. The selling point for our program has been, No. 1, it’s not competitive like an EQUIP Conservation Incentive contract.
Any farmer can sign up; they don’t have to compete to be in our program.
We have also gotten feedback that our payments are too low. If we had to do it over, we probably would have bumped the payments up. A lot has changed in the three or four years since we wrote the grant for Farmers for Soil Health. Our payment at the beginning is less than other programs, such as EQUIP. But we know the amount of money a farmer gets is not the only deciding factor. Our program was designed to be very easy. Enrollment is simple, verification is simple. We’ve gotten feedback that farmers like that.
Christy Melhart:
The Farmers for Soil Health Marketplace is a game changer. It is the first platform that enables growers to connect directly with buyers; they’re not dependent on somebody in the middle to help negotiate. When farmers enroll in Farmers for Soil Health, they can also indicate they want to be enrolled in the Marketplace. Now let’s say a food company wants to purchase environmental benefits, such as acres of cover crop practice in four counties in this state.
Participating farmers in those counties get an alert: You have a buyer. The food company will post an offer of how much they are willing to pay for the acres of cover crop. Farmers can decide who they want to interact with. They can go back and forth on the price or accept the price immediately. On the farmer’s side, it is democratizing. They have the ability to make decisions for their farm — to sell their environmental benefits to who they want and for the price they want.
Ben West:
There are so many parts of the Marketplace that are innovative and important. I’ve never heard Christy call it democratizing, but it is exactly that. I think the price transparency is so important. We all get this question all the time: What is a ton of carbon worth? We have no idea because there is no transparency in it. You know what something is worth when you know what someone is willing to pay for it, and what someone is willing to sell it for. We do not have data about that.
Transparency reduces financial risk and volatility. That is good for everybody — buyers, sellers, the whole sector. The agricultural sector is always going to be competitive. We’re going through a rough time right now. Farmers are. The farmers who are going to be successful long term are those who are able to diversify their income as much as possible. Part of that is revenue from sustainability — adopting sustainability practices, as well as the payments themselves.
For more on how we and our customer-owners support a more sustainable agriculture industry, read our 2024 Sustainability Report.
Enrollment and Verification:
Enrollment is open through February of each year to farmers with corn/soybean rotations in 20 states. The program supports those who are expanding their cover crop usage, as well as those just getting started. Specific fields can have a history of cover cropping, just not in the immediate year before enrollment. Enrollment comes with technical expertise and transition incentive payments (TIP) and/or signing incentive payments (SIP).
A total of $50 per acre during a three-year period is available through TIP:
- $25 in the first year
- $15 in the second year
- $10 in the third year
SIP provides $2 per acre for up to 600,000 acres of existing cover crops annually. Participants also can choose to enroll in the Farmers for Soil Health Marketplace, where farmers with cover crop acres can sell direct to consumer, packaged-goods companies seeking to meet sustainability goals. Farmers’ cover crop plantings are verified by remote sensing and self-certified by the farmer.
All program activity was paused in early 2025 as part of the federal government’s review of funding priorities. Click here for updates and to learn more about Farmers for Soil Health in your state.
