Ep. 6: What It Takes to Approach Sustainability with a Producer-Centric Mindset

John Mesko: (00:06)

Resource Positive Agriculture describes what we all want a food and farming system which makes full and responsible use of the natural world. In this podcast, I’ll explore how agriculture can be a force for good on everything from the environment to people and our society. I’m John Mesko, the executive director of the Potato Sustainability Alliance. And welcome to the Resource Positive Agriculture Podcast. My guest today is Amy Skoczlas Cole, who’s the executive vice president at Trust in Food. Thank you for joining me, Amy.

Amy Skoczlas Cole: (00:46)

It’s great to be here, John.

John Mesko: (00:48)

Amy, you and I have had a number of conversations about sustainable agriculture and, “what it takes to move the needle,” as it were. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about the things that you’re doing at Trust in Food. Not only your role there, but what’s happening as this initiative is rolled out. I know that I’ve been paying a lot of attention to what’s going on. I’m not sure that our listeners of this podcast are up to speed completely on the latest news coming out of your organization.

Amy Skoczlas Cole: (01:25)

Sure. Well, let me just start with a brief introduction to Trust in Foo,. So Trust in Food is a part of Farm Journal. So I don’t know how much you and your listeners know about Farm Journal, but we’re a 145-year-old company that was founded on the idea of getting farmers and producers the information that they need to make great business decisions that are still core to our mission today. Obviously, we’ve gotten a little bit bigger in the last 145 years, so today we’re the leader in agricultural content, Farm Journal Magazine, Ag Web, all sorts of livestock producer publications, et cetera. And also, this is maybe a part of our business that not everyone sees and touches as much. We also are one of the nation’s leading providers of data and business information around agriculture. So at Trust in Food as the sustainable ag arm of Farm Journal, what I get to do is take the assets that the company provides, so the trust of our brand that has really been about serving farmers, the reach that we have into just about every producer in the United States.

Amy Skoczlas Cole: (02:44)

And then a lot of data and information, and my team of sustainable ag experts takes that and we put it to work to help everyone across the sustainable ag community, help make their programs and services and sustainable products go farther faster. So what that means is our mission is about fill-in-the-blank-word, taking regenerative, climate smart agriculture practices, scaling them to the mainstream, making them work for producers in a really producer-centered way, and then helping organizations whose missions are aligned with that. Just have better insight and intel on what is going to work and what’s not going to work for producers today.

John Mesko: (03:28)

Well, that’s great. And this idea, and I’ve shared this in my comments to grower groups over the last several years is, if what we in the sustainability community come up with doesn’t work for farmers, it doesn’t really work. Everybody that is concerned about the climate, everybody’s concerned about the things that we’re talking about here, at the end of the day, ultimately is asking a farmer or anticipating a farmer or helping a farmer to do something different on their farm. And you mentioned, you’re looking for ways to scale these practices or this movement in a producer-centered way. At Potato Sustainability Alliance, we use the term farmer-centric, but I’m curious, can you expand a little bit on when you say producer-centered, what that really means?

Amy Skoczlas Cole: (04:21)

Yeah. Well, I mean, it really starts with respecting and honoring the fact that producers are as varied as humanity is varied, and that each operation is different bio physically, economically, and also in terms of the folks who are running it and making the business decisions around it, so that leads to a couple of conclusions. First, and I have come out of the conservation community. I am going on 30 years in working on sustainability and food, fiber and fuels, so I have been as guilty of this as anyone, but I really think that too often, we start with an education mind frame like, “Let’s just tell these people over here what they need to know,” which is really patronizing and also really ineffective. The people who are running these operations have the lived-experiences of what it looks like day in, day out, minute by minute, acre by acre, parcel by parcel, so part of this is flipping the mindset.

Amy Skoczlas Cole: (05:27)

It’s not to, we have information that other people need to impart on other people, but going in and asking a lot of questions of what do producers need, where are they, what are their goals? So we can talk more about that, but we do have a bit of a framework of what we think a farmer centered, I like that farmer-centric approach kind of looks like.

John Mesko: (05:54)

Well, yeah. And I think as we’ve talked so many times, it does really start with data and information, but it doesn’t end there. Many, many, many years ago, I happened to be a salesman for an input supplier, and we had all kinds of information about the products that we wanted to sell to farmers and all that information, of course, explained that they were good and maybe better than the competition and so forth. But that didn’t mean a farmer would drop everything and buy the product that I was pitching to them. Ask any salesman they’ll tell you, or any salesperson will tell you that it takes a lot more than data and information to move the needle as we say. What’s that framework that you’re talking about at Trust in Food?

Amy Skoczlas Cole: (06:38)

Well, your example is perfect. Any good person going in trying to sell somebody else is hopefully going to start with the question, “What do you need to know? And what problem can I solve for you?” And I think too often our conversations have started with, “Hey, farmers. How can you help fill in the blanks, the global environment, local water quality, et cetera,” and of course, agriculture has an important and responsible role in protecting and improving natural resource quality. But when we think about it for anybody to make a change, and this is just basic behavioral science, for anybody to make a change you have to go through a continuum. And so we think about it as it goes to the information piece.

Amy Skoczlas Cole: (07:27)

So first you have to be aware of what is being talked about whether it’s a particular practice or a particular program or product or service, so you have to be aware of it, and you have to understand it enough to relate it to your operation. So not just, “Hey, what does a different tillage system mean intellectually, but do I understand what that would mean on my operation?” And then once you have that, any individual needs to see value in making a change. And that is of course, and we’ll probably talk about this, of course, there has to be financial value at the end of the day, we are talking about businesses. And so there does have to be a financial case, but I’m going to argue that the financial case isn’t sufficient, it’s necessary but insufficient. That a producer needs to see that what’s being requested of them aligns with their own values and how they see their operation within their landscape, within their family, within their family’s goals, and so this is about what are their hopes, dreams and fears, and how does what you’re asking them to do play up against this?

Amy Skoczlas Cole: (08:39)

Are they worried about long term profitability? Are they worried about risk, and how does sustainability play in that? And then finally, I think there is the on-the-ground reality that we too often negate, especially people who sit behind computers every day in addition to having the knowledge and the technical assistance, in addition to having the financial value and having it align with your own goals and values, what’s it actually going to take? And so at the end of the day, producers are self-employed, their time is their money. What are the practical barriers in their way? Do they have enough time? Do they have the labor to support making a change?

Amy Skoczlas Cole: (09:21)

Often we ask them to start with a hundred acres, but what does it mean? We’re in Minnesota, so what does it mean to change a hundred acres on a thousand-acre operation when you’ve got as short of a growing and harvest season as we do? Let’s really think hard about what that means in terms of the burden of time and energy, the mental load. We all talk about producers’ mental health, and understand that crisis that is upon us for lots of reasons, but just the burden of change. I think all of us can resonate with that to some degree coming out of COVID, that sometimes change just is hard, and it’s just one more thing that we can’t quite find the emotional labor to rise to. But then also, and this is a whole other conversation, do I have someone I trust that has been on this journey before? And so we think that’s a really important piece of the puzzle too.

John Mesko: (10:12)

Well, I love the way you said the mental load, that summarizes a lot of thoughts that I have on a regular basis because we all have so much information coming to us now, and it seems like all of that information is trying to be the most important information out there whether it’s amplified through an email or text messages or robotic automated messaging that we hear from all the time or just even local news and things that come to us, it’s all vying for our attention. So the communications are getting more sophisticated and better and the quality and advice for our attention, and I think just that is fatiguing, at least it is to me.

Amy Skoczlas Cole: (11:04)

Yeah. And so then what do we do then? It is fatiguing, and we see this going on in lots of ways, but it means that we start to close in a little bit and who we decide to trust, and the information we decide to trust really does become a smaller bubble. And so one of the things that we do in a lot of the programming, so we are the implementing partner for something called America’s Conservation Ag Movement which is about 16 different organizations partnered with NRCS and us under the auspices of the Farm Journal Foundation and in the places where we are at work on the ground. One of the key things that we’re doing is what we’re calling peer-to-peer networks. So this is, how do you put farmers in touch with other farmers, hopefully, nearby them that have operations that have some similarities to them to say, what has your experience been?

Amy Skoczlas Cole: (12:04)

And then to learn from each other, it creates community which I think is really important, but it also starts to break through this, “There’s so much information who do I believe?” Well, we as humans tend to trust those like us the most, and we see that playing out in sustainable agriculture in really interesting ways, so at Trust in Food we do a lot of research, and we’re looking at a lot of data. And there are very few communities that I’ve looked at in which one of the most trusted advisors is actually another farmer, is not another farmer like that, that always rises to the top.

John Mesko: (12:39)

Absolutely. And probably true of other communities. I mean, if I were a painter and I needed information, I would tend to listen to a painter over somebody that maybe is a paint salesperson.

Amy Skoczlas Cole: (12:58)

… that’s a really good example because, what is it about? 2% of Americans are in agriculture right now, that’s a lot of Americans that are not, and that distance between those who are still feeding us, clothing us, providing energy for us, and the rest of us, it is growing larger. And so it makes sense that when it comes to making a change on your business and your operations, you’re going to trust someone who has walked that path rather than someone who has not.

John Mesko: (13:33)

… absolutely. And I love the approach of looking at producer-centered, farmer-centric working initiatives, and I love how you have said one of the things are the values. Let’s assume that the practice change or the innovation or the thing that is being promoted, let’s assume it has an economic value. Let’s just take that as a given, but you said there are other values, and I was really intrigued by one of the things that play into this is how farmers see their own values, how they see their operation in the context of their family and in their community, and you said something about hopes, dreams and fears. And I know that part of your approach is to really recognize that everybody is unique and everybody has a different set of those hopes, dreams and fears, but I was curious if there are any themes or any groupings of things or that are common ideas or common hopes and dreams and fears that you find as take a look at the farming community?

Amy Skoczlas Cole: (14:46)

Yeah. I could probably talk about this for more time than you have.

John Mesko: (14:51)

Well, I have to do another podcast then.

Amy Skoczlas Cole: (14:53)

Sure.

Amy Skoczlas Cole: (14:55)

So let me touch on a few that come through, so you’re right. Part of being farmer centric is understanding that everyone is different, but we do have some commonalities that we can draw on. One thing that really pulls through in a lot of the research and data that we look at is the idea of generational legacy, and so how often do we meet a producer and they make sure to tell us what generation they are in their operations, and then their hopes and dreams to pass it on to the next generation. Or we see beginning producers still talking that way, folks who may not have had family in farming, but who are breaking in as hard as that can be, and who are doing that because they think it’s going to be a line of work that they want to be in, but that they are building something for their future generations too.

Amy Skoczlas Cole: (15:48)

So that is definitely one theme, and so if you get into the analysis of what does that mean, certainly stewardship of natural resources becomes really important, and profitability does too. Producers are seeing that the landscape is changing, especially here in the Midwest where you’ve got a lot of consolidation underway and biggering and biggering. That is certainly top of mind. I would say another big theme is a sense of feeling risk and feeling like they are making operational decisions in order to mitigate risk, and that risk can take the form of, look at just the commodity price swings that we’ve had, the input cost swings that we’ve had, uncertain and changing weather patterns which producers are acknowledging across the country regardless of whether the concept of climate change is something that they have absorbed or not.

Amy Skoczlas Cole: (16:52)

And so a lot of times, well-intentioned sustainable ag groups are out there messaging about increased profitability, and of course, nothing works if it doesn’t work financially. There’s a catch-22, I think that we’re seeing that there’s at least a significant portion of producers who are not going to trade off an extra 10, 15, 18 bucks an acre if they believe that it’s going to introduce some longer-term systemic risk to their operation. And so that’s a hurdle that I think a lot of our sustainable ag practices have to overcome to say, not only do these not introduce risk, but they also can help build resilience. We talk about that a lot, but I’m not sure that we’ve really proved it at the level of being able to demonstrate it to a producer.

John Mesko: (17:46)

That’s great. That is really, really a good summary, and I think what you just said about risk is something that probably has broad implications. I mean, I think a lot of the comments that I hear back from farmers that are going through my head right now have some connection back to that, “Well, if I do this, I’m not sure what’s going to happen. It’s unknown and that’s risky. I’d much rather take maybe a little bit lower return economically, but have it be more certain that I’m going to get that.”

Amy Skoczlas Cole: (18:24)

And that’s right, and let’s not pretend that it is just the biophysical risk. It is also the risk of you can’t really talk about sustainable ag practices without talking about things like crop insurance and other risk mitigating mechanisms and how those can be complicated. It takes a lot of time and effort to understand how making a change is going to have ramifications on the financial safety nets that we build around agriculture, and then we haven’t talked about carbon or carbon markets yet, but there’s also, “What if I do something now that I’m going to not get compensated for later?”

John Mesko: (19:10)

They’re going to regret doing it.

Amy Skoczlas Cole: (19:10)

Which has been going through the minds of a lot of producers right now that were coming to me and saying, “I’ve been no-till for 20 years, am I going to get a carbon credit for that?” And right now the answer is, probably not. I think there are a lot of folks trying to fix that, but right now the answer seems to be probably not.

John Mesko: (19:26)

Yeah, I agree. I think that is in the minds of a lot of producers and maybe unarticulated, but it’s there, it’s an understanding. You mentioned the generational legacy, and I’d like to just go back to that just for a second because it points to, and leads me to think about one of the things that you and I talked just briefly before we started the podcast here, and that is this notion of continual improvement. We call this the Resource Positive Agriculture podcast, one of the ideas behind this is not really to introduce a new term, but to say all of the terms like sustainable and regenerative and resilient, you used that just a minute ago, these are all terms that point us towards improvement and moving agriculture and the environment and rural communities in a positive direction.

John Mesko: (20:20)

And so we want to embrace that entire conversation on this podcast, and when you say generational legacy, most farmers that I talk with, most people that I talk with in a general sense around leaving something for the following generations, they want to leave it better. They don’t want to leave the same thing they inherited. They actually want to take on the responsibility of that property or that business or whatever the case may be in, and when they’re done hand it to the next generation in a better situation, a better condition than they got it. Can you speak a little bit about the importance of continual improvement and how that needs to be part of our conversation as well?

Amy Skoczlas Cole: (21:05)

Yeah. Well, that’s really… When we talk about continuous improvement, we’re really talking about the fact that farming agriculture is really a journey in a system, and so that has a couple of ramifications. The first is, there is no on or off switch. There is no binary, like one day you’re not sustainable, the next day you’ve checked some boxes, you are. And I actually think that some of the systems that come before us as well-intentioned as they have been, have actually harmed us in that way. You are either certified organic or you are not, so understanding that sustainability is a journey, is important, and that’s at the level of an individual operation. We’re always learning a little bit more and we’re always tweaking.

Amy Skoczlas Cole: (22:08)

And of course, we’re talking about a living system on a farm, and so as we gain more information and as the environment around a producer changes whether that’s from a water availability standpoint, whether that’s from a soil health and quality standpoint, things are obviously always going to have to change. When I think about continuous improvement, I also think about the need for us to start thinking through at the bigger system level, and I think this is maybe a little bit of where we’re headed is, I know it is so frustrating to producers to continually be told, “You’re causing harm or you’re not sustainable,” when they can point at, and we can see the types of changes they’ve made over the last 20, 30, 40 years.

Amy Skoczlas Cole: (22:59)

And so people have been making changes, and we also know that there are still environmental challenges out there that agriculture is contributing to, so now we have to think about my operation within the bigger system of what’s going on around me in my place. And I think that’s really hard and it’s asking a lot, but when we think about continuous improvement it’s, what can I do acre by acre? And then how does that going to respond to what’s going on around me? And I don’t think we, as a sustainable ag community, are anywhere near having that message nailed down for producers yet.

John Mesko: (23:38)

Yeah, I agree. And I think we still treat sustainability as an assembly line like, “Push this button, pull this lever, tack on this practice and that’s what’s needed.” And as you said several times, we’re dealing with a living system. It doesn’t really work that way. Our human bodies are similar, if the doctor prescribes a pill or some prescription to help you feel better, it probably has some side effects that maybe they’re minor and doesn’t bother, but maybe the risk getting back to that, maybe their side effects aren’t worth the treatment. And we deal with that all the time in human health, but when we talk about a farm and a living system, we’re talking about soil health and the health of the environment, it’s a very, very similar analogy. And so I agree with you, we’ve got a long way to go on some of these areas.

Amy Skoczlas Cole: (24:36)

And the tools, the options out there are also constantly changing, and so now this takes us all the way back to the mental load of staying up to date on what’s available, having a network that’s going to help you evaluate what’s available. And I am talking about up-and-coming things like biologicals. I’m also talking about tools like connected data support and farm management information systems. That idea that having better data is going to help producers make better decisions is real, and yet some of the work that we’ve done at Trust in Food together with the sustainability consortium points to the fact that there’s still a third or more producers that are still tracking their operation pen and paper. And then we’ve talked about the environment of what options are available for technical assistance for cost share, for being rewarded for the contributions that you’re making from an ecosystem service standpoint. It’s a lot to juggle. It’s a lot.

John Mesko: (25:46)

Yeah, no doubt. There’s a lot going on, and to our earlier conversation, the volume and pitch is loud, and a lot of information out there and really looking for ways to be the source of information were similar to the things we’ve talked about being that trusted source where farmers can lean into the information, make good decisions, mitigate risk. Amy, it’s been a really enjoyable conversation as it always has been when we talk. Before we wrap up though, I’m curious if you can share maybe some of the things that are around the corner in Trust in Food. This may be some events or some projects, some information that’s going to be coming out in the next few weeks and months, anything we should be looking for?

Amy Skoczlas Cole: (26:38)

Yeah. Great. So there are a couple of things I would point to, one thing that I would point to is that we are actually about to release a report called Ready or Not, U.S. Agriculture and Carbon Markets. And in it, we do what we do here at Trust in Food which is, we start to look at what do producers understand. What values are they seeing in carbon markets, and what barriers are in their way? So again, it’s no secret that carbon markets are not compensating folks at a level that feels right to them now, but there are also a number of other stumbling blocks in the way that we want… I want carbon markets to be successful. I want to see farmers being rewarded for the positive ecosystems and service contributions that they’re making, and I want the community to be smart about what it’s going to take to get those to scale up and move fast.

Amy Skoczlas Cole: (27:38)

The other thing I would point out is that a little bit down the road, but we have an annual Trust in Food Symposium. It’s happening at the end of January. It’s in connection with the Top Producer Summit that we at Farm Journal hold every year, at the tail end of January, so you can look for the Top Producer Summit and the Trust in Food Symposium, and we are really talking… It is multiple days of us really digging in across the entire value chain for, what is it that producers actually need in order to take the next steps in a really farmer-centered way. So we’d love to have listeners join us and we love to hear what people think. You can reach us at trustinfood.com and find out more about our programming there too.

John Mesko: (28:26)

That’s great. I was just about to ask, how can we make sure we don’t miss out on these exciting things, and folks can sign up for a newsletter, I’m assuming?

Amy Skoczlas Cole: (28:36)

Yep.

John Mesko: (28:36)

At trustinfood.com.

Amy Skoczlas Cole: (28:37)

Yep. We have a great weekly newsletter that goes out. I promise we’re not trying to sell anybody anything. It is free and is really trying to do the roundup of where are the cool happenings going forward in sustainable ag from a producer-centered standpoint. You can also find us on the socials, Twitter, LinkedIn, places like that @trustinfood.

John Mesko: (28:59)

Oh, that’s excellent, and I can endorse the newsletter. We all get way too many of those, but this is one that I read every time it comes across. I scroll through it, I click on links, I read the articles. It’s been very helpful to stay abreast of what’s going on there, and it helps me be informed about the kinds of things that are next up in the potato world which is something that I work on an awful lot as you know. Amy, thank you so much for this conversation. I want to go to the Top Producer Summit in January. I want to have another one of these conversations with you. I really appreciate the opportunity to pick your brain and hear about the things that you’re working on and the things that are coming down the road, so I really appreciate you joining us today. Thank you very much.

Amy Skoczlas Cole: (29:51)

Well, thanks for the opportunity. It is always great to connect with you and hear how things at the Potato Sustainability Alliance are moving forward, and I just love the idea of Resource Positive Agriculture, so I’m happy to support in any way that I can.

John Mesko: (30:07)

That’s great. Thanks, Amy.

Amy Skoczlas Cole: (30:08)

Thank you.

John Mesko: (30:14)

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