The tractor seller trying to get farmers to embrace sustainability

Aug 24, 2022 View in browser   By Debra Kahn VERBATIM Madelyn Koester is trying to help farmers embrace sustainable practices. | Courtesy Madelyn Koester Deere & Co. is known for its tractors. But it's also making inroads into sustainability. Madelyn Koester is a senior project manager on John Deere's sustainability team. She isn't on the equipment side; she works for Deere's digital arm, which is exploring how to make it easier and more attractive for farmers to do things like reduce herbicide use and plant cover crops to improve soil health. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. John Deere is known for its farming equipment. What do you do in terms of sustainability? Within digital, we have a group called Emerging Technology. Sustainability at Deere got started inside of this group because it was a new area that we knew we needed to focus on, and because we thought the biggest opportunity at the time was helping farmers from a digital perspective. Essentially, in order for a farmer to take advantage of any sustainability programs out there — like a farmer gets paid X dollars for either sequestering carbon or changing a practice on their farm — they have to prove with data that they did whatever required management change was part of the program. Deere equipment automatically records a lot of what happens on a field. Today we have a tool called John Deere Operations Center , which is the web app or the software that a farmer can log into and see all of those things that his machine recorded. So the planting, harvest, yield, that kind of stuff. My role is primarily figuring out what we can do inside of that software to help farmers easily take advantage of sustainability programs. Are there any specific programs that have caught on with farmers? There's a program called the U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol. As a cotton farmer, you can enroll in this program; doing that gives the farmer a stamp of approval that their cotton is sustainable. It doesn't pay farmers for doing anything yet, though they want to get to that point. It's kind of like how a rising tide raises all boats, where they're trying to emphasize the sustainability of cotton produced in the U.S., because we compete globally with a lot of other countries in export markets for cotton. How does this all intersect with carbon markets? When it comes to carbon markets, a farmer does have to actually change what they're doing to be able to sequester carbon. The idea is that we can eventually help surface what the opportunities are for a farmer inside of their John Deere Operations Center account, so that it's really easy for them to say, "Hey, you know, I could earn X dollars an acre based on the information that I've already collected and what I'm doing on my field," and we can make it super simple, where instead of spending a week filling out data requirements it would take about 10 minutes, because they have everything already recorded. It's not there today, but that's where we would like to go. Carbon markets, generally speaking, are challenging because there's about seven or eight different steps that have to happen to actually mint a credit, and they force additionality. So if you're a farmer that has already been doing no-till and has already implemented cover crops years ago, you cannot be in a carbon market. We're also exploring what other programs are out there that would compensate farmers that were maybe ahead of the curve. Madelyn Koester, Deere & Co. When you talk to farmers, what are you talking to them about? Are you trying to persuade them of anything? We don't want to tell farmers how to do their job. We would never take the stance of, 'You should do XYZ on your farm.' But what we do talk to them about is, 'What do you need to be incentivized with to do this?' We interviewed more than 50 farmers last summer on this topic, and we kind of bucketed them into three groups. There are about 10 to 15 percent of farmers that have already adopted sustainable practices, so they're doing stuff like cover crops and no-till. And they're a little ahead of the curve in terms of technology too. Those two areas align. Then about 70 percent of farmers are in the middle. They're willing to learn and open-minded about trying new things, but they don't really have the resources to do so, or they don't know how, or they're waiting for more incentive to do it. The remainder are farmers that are never going to change. Sometimes they rent a lot of land they use, so they're not guaranteed to have that piece of farm ground in their operation the next 10 or 20 years. Trying to figure out something new carries more risk for them because they don't know if they're going to be using that same land and see this change through, because a lot of the sustainable practice changes take multiple years to see the benefit. We've been focusing on that middle section to really try to understand what it would take to get them to change their practice. So what is Deere's role here relative to all the other organizations involved in sustainability? Our team is still working to figure out exactly where Deere should play in this space. We've tested out many different things and believe there's a role in data collection and management because of the way our machinery collects a lot of that information. Deere has an interest in buying carbon credits ourselves, so there could be a path where Deere acts as a project developer. There's also equipment that can help facilitate cover crops and no-till, and we have some of those offerings in our suite of products. We've done a lot of work to understand where we have gaps in our product offering and what we can do to change that. There's also technical support. We have a large dealer network and they direct relationships with all of our customers. There may be an opportunity for dealers to play a role in providing technical support, or even data management support, so we're testing some of that out, too. What else are you doing on sustainability? We have technology in our equipment, like See and Spray Ultimate. Instead of blanket-spraying a herbicide on a field, it uses cameras on the sprayer to identify where the weeds are and only sprays the weeds instead of spraying everything. That reduces how much herbicide is sprayed, and also reduces herbicide costs for farmers. Are there any incentives or policies that would help with sustainability? There was a big USDA request for proposals recently called Climate-Smart Commodities. They asked for collaborations of private and nonprofit groups to submit proposals that are all geared around facilitating markets. We submitted a couple of proposals for that in partnership with some other groups. Generally, our belief is that the incentives today are not high enough, because of the cost involved in changing some of these practices. It seems like you guys have a lot of clout with farmers and could go a long way in getting them to be more sustainable, but also you wouldn't want to push too hard. We have a great reputation. If we can leverage it, that also means we have to be careful about how we go to market.   SUBSCRIBE TO POWER SWITCH: The energy landscape is profoundly transforming. Power Switch is a daily newsletter that unlocks the most important stories driving the energy sector and the political forces shaping critical decisions about your energy future, from production to storage, distribution to consumption. Don't miss out on Power Switch, your guide to the politics of energy transformation in America and around the world. SUBSCRIBE TODAY.     YOU TELL US GAME ON — Welcome to the Long Game, where we tell you about the latest on efforts to shape our future. We deliver data-driven storytelling, compelling interviews with industry and political leaders, and news Tuesday through Friday to keep you in the loop on sustainability. Team Sustainability is editor Greg Mott, deputy editor Debra Kahn and reporters Lorraine Woellert and Jordan Wolman. Reach us all at gmott@politico.com, dkahn@politico.com, lwoellert@politico.com and jwolman@politico.com. Want more? Don't we all. Sign up for the Long Game. Four days a week and still free! WHAT WE'RE CLICKING — The University of Texas's endowment is gaining fast on Harvard's as a result of its oil and gas holdings, Bloomberg reports. WSJ's not so impressed. — Nasdaq's position on the SEC's climate disclosure rule could hurt its own ESG arm, the FT points out. — If NYT's fashion critic can't tell whether renting clothes is sustainable, how can anyone else?   LISTEN TO POLITICO'S ENERGY PODCAST: Check out our daily five-minute brief on the latest energy and environmental politics and policy news. Don't miss out on the must-know stories, candid insights, and analysis from POLITICO's energy team. Listen today.       Follow us on Twitter Debra Kahn @debra_kahn Greg Mott @gwmott Lorraine Woellert @Woellert Jordan Wolman @jordanwolman   Follow us

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