Benchmarks and Breakthroughs in Agricultural Sustainability

Alex Rivera 4

Alright, folks, welcome back to Digest This: Unpacking Our Sustainable Future. Today is one of those episodes where I feel like we’re right at the center of the agricultural sustainability universe. Emily, you’ve got the 2025 Field to Market Sustainability Commitments Report right in front of you. What’s standing out for you from the top?

Emily Nguyen 4

Honestly, this report pulls together something unique—it’s the commitments of a really broad group across agriculture. We’re talking growers, agribusinesses, brands and retailers, civil society, and all sorts of affiliates, all benchmarking goals in one place. There’s this collective vibe, almost like a big team huddle, and it’s not just feel-good talk—they’re using benchmarks, they’re comparing ambitions, driving accountability, which, you know, wasn’t exactly the norm just a decade ago.

Alex Rivera 4

Yeah, that collective piece—I mean, Field to Market really wants the industry to see where everyone stands. For organizations, being able to look at the goals of their peers, and see, “Hey, are we ahead? Are we lagging?” that lights a fire under some folks. But also, these aren’t just one-off pledges. We’re talking about transparent, ongoing progress—it’s like the industry report card, except people actually pay attention.

Emily Nguyen 4

And, Alex, the platform behind a lot of this, the Fieldprint Platform, is a big deal. I try not to sound like a tech evangelist, but this tool lets everyone—brands, retailers, suppliers, you name it—measure and track the environmental effects of commodity crop production. And it’s not just a simple score. There are eight environmental indicators layered in: greenhouse gases, soil carbon, soil erosion, energy, water quality, irrigation, biodiversity, land use. It’s holistic. That’s a mouthful. But the point is, there are measurable targets across these eight, pushing supply chain partners to not only set goals, but actually track them in a transparent and comparable way.

Alex Rivera 4

Yup, and I know folks can get lost in the jargon, but for our listeners, this means everyone from the biggest food companies to a family farm in Nebraska can look at these metrics and see how they’re moving the needle—or if they’re not. And the report isn’t shy: 63% of Field to Market members have public sustainability commitments. That’s over a hundred organizations. About a quarter have SBTi-validated goals too, so we’re talking science-based, not just PR spin.

Emily Nguyen 4

Exactly, and it creates this shared language that was missing for a long time. I mean, now when you talk about regenerative agriculture, there’s practical, sector-wide guidance. Released just this year! So the big story for me is that sustainability’s not just something you talk about at a conference—it’s benchmarking, tracking, and real collaboration driving actual results in the field and throughout the value chain.

Alex Rivera 4

Alright, so with that stage set, let’s dig into some of the organizations that are really putting their goals into action. Some of these sector commitments are honestly a little jaw-dropping.

Emily Nguyen 4

Yeah, so let’s just grab a couple of the big ones. For me, I keep coming back to the U.S. Dairy industry. According to this report, their goal for GHG neutrality by 2050—like, zero net greenhouse gas emissions for an entire sector—is just massive. And they’re not just talking in circles; they’re also optimizing water use and nutrient cycling, hashing out specifics for manure and nutrient management. But the scale... I mean, dairy is everywhere in our food chain.

Alex Rivera 4

And cotton’s another one that jumps out. The U.S. cotton industry’s aiming for a 39% cut in GHG emissions by 2025—right around the corner. Plus, they want to increase soil carbon in fields by 30%, drop energy use by 15%, and more. It’s the definition of a sector-wide, science-based target. They’re using the Fieldprint Calculator to track progress across millions of acres, which is, well, a nerdy sort of impressive.

Emily Nguyen 4

I mean, it’s genuinely exciting! And some of the regenerative ag stories are just as ambitious. AgriCapture—here’s an example—has worked with 150,000 U.S. acres and has this whole field-level data collection system to verify and quantify climate benefits. And their carbon credits are actually getting to market—70,000 tonnes of emissions reduction verified just from the rice methane project. And they’re paying farmers, which is honestly the real-world incentive piece that can make or break adoption on the ground.

Alex Rivera 4

And, Emily, I don’t want to get too sidetracked, but the U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol—these are the folks tracking how many growers are actually using cover crops and no-till. Like, over half of their growers are using no-till or conservation tillage, leaving residue on the fields for soil health and water retention, and more than sixty percent have adopted cover crops. These aren’t pocket-sized numbers—it’s real momentum for regenerative practices, and it’s hitting water and soil goals head-on.

Emily Nguyen 4

Right, and actual water savings. In their most recent report, protocol growers cut soil loss by seventy-nine percent and increased water use efficiency by fourteen percent. It’s data—hard numbers, not just theories. Then you have the tech side, right? Look at Pivot Bio’s recent pilot in cotton. They ran a trial in 2024 with their nitrogen-fixing microbes. The results? They achieved parity in nitrogen efficiency versus traditional synthetic application—but with significantly less emissions and resource use. Farmers used fewer synthetic inputs and still got the yields. That is seriously promising if you want scalable biotech fixes.

Alex Rivera 4

Totally, and it ties back to innovation scaling up, which we’ve covered in past episodes—like when we talked about our LGSD fertilizers and biogas generated from digesting spent grain from distilleries. The use of verified tech at scale is reshaping whole value chains. These discoveries aren’t just a big splash in one region; they’re the template for scaling up climate-friendly practices sector-wide. And organizations are getting real results: ADM, just as an example, has cut Scope 1 and 2 emissions by almost fifteen percent over their baseline, and they’ve got five million global acres in regenerative programs—hit that a year early, by the way.

Emily Nguyen 4

All these examples just reinforce that you need a mix—sector science-based targets, supply chain incentives, and field-level breakthroughs. You see tech pilots, full-chain verification, and most crucially, financial rewards on the acre. And brands, suppliers, even data platforms—everybody’s crowding in to move the needle a little faster.

Alex Rivera 4

And that brings us to the organizations and programs aiming for cross-sector collaboration. Let’s shift and talk practicalities—because targets are grand, but making the numbers count at ground level is a whole other story.

Alex Rivera 4

Alright, so we’ve covered benchmarks and bold claims. But as fun as those big numbers sound, the buzzword—accountability—always gets me. Emily, you’ve seen it—brands like PepsiCo, Walmart, and Group Bimbo; they’re all setting science-based targets, across Scopes 1, 2, and 3. Not just their own emissions, but their suppliers’, distributors’, and sometimes their farmers’ supply chain impacts too. Absolute reductions, intensity-based targets: I mean, there’s a lot of math behind these promises.

Emily Nguyen 4

Definitely, and it goes beyond just tracking emissions. These brands put their ambitions out there, but they need help to pull it off. This is where the civil society and affiliate sector steps up—organizations like NACD’s Soil Health Champions or certification programs out of Minnesota. They’re providing support and verification, and most importantly, figuring out the right incentives.

Alex Rivera 4

Yeah, that “producer incentive meets retailer audit” sweet spot. Tangible rewards and public data really drive adoption. If you look at programs like Minnesota’s Agriculture Water Quality Certification, they went from zero to over a million acres and sixteen hundred producers certified. Not because it was mandatory, but because there were real, transparent benefits. And then there are the technical support teams, like NACD and the Soil Health Institute, ground-truthing data and providing soil metrics farmers can actually see on their land. And then you have organizations like us at 3 Rivers Energy Partners. We're doing our part to supply farmers with our low-carbon fertilizer to help improve their soil health. We actually have our own fertilizer initiative where we're selling our low-carbon fertilizer at a fraction of the cost of commercial fertilizers.

Emily Nguyen 4

It’s slow, messy progress, but it’s happening because—honestly—farmers, suppliers, and brands are all coming together to prove their progress, not just promise it. And that’s where we’ll leave it for this episode. Alex, any final thoughts?

Alex Rivera 4

Just that these commitments are now living, evolving processes, not static goals. It’s a big leap from “aspirational” to “demonstrable,” and we’ll keep tracking which benchmarks become realities as we head deeper into 2025 and beyond. Emily, always a pleasure. Looking forward to next time!

Emily Nguyen 4

Right back at you, Alex. Thanks to everyone tuning in, and be sure to join us on the next episode of Digest This. Take care everyone!