Posted January 29, 2025 | By: Nutrien Ag Solutions

In Northwest Texas, Survivability is Sustainability: Ky Houchin on Driving Smart Water Use with Data Collection

Good sustainable ag practices and carefully-collected data won’t make it rain more.

But they will help you make the most out of every drop.

And in Northwest Texas, they know a thing or two about making due with limited rainfall.

So on this episode, we’re talking to Precision Ag Lead Ky Houchin from the Nutrien Ag Solutions South Plains Division about how growers in the Lubbock area are tracking their water use and inputs to maximize their yields in a climate with less than 20 inches of rain a year.

We'll also discuss how data-driven decisions can enhance crop yields and sustainability, the hurdles that some growers encounter in adopting new practices, and the critical role of water quality and nutrient management in achieving sustainable outcomes.

Episode Transcript

Christine Bielski 

I think the numbers speak for themselves. It's caught on in our area. 

We’ve got our work cut out for us, but I feel like that's what makes the people that I work with so great, because they found ways to overcome all those obstacles and still grow some really great crops. 

 

Dusty Weis 

Welcome to the FARMSMART Podcast, presented by Nutrien Ag Solutions, where every month, we’re talking to sustainable agriculture experts from throughout the industry. 

As the leading source of insight for growers on evolving their sustainability practices while staying grounded in agronomic proof, FARMSMART is where sustainability meets opportunity.  

 

Sally Flis 

We don’t just talk change – we're out in the field, helping you identify the products, practices and technologies that bring the future to your fields, faster. 

I’m Dr. Sally Flis, Director of Program Design and Outcome Management. 

 

Dusty Weis 

And I'm Dusty Weis, and we're joined today by Christine Bielski, Northern High Plains Division Research and Sustainability Manager at Nutrien Ag Solutions. Christine, welcome back to the show. 

 

Christine Bielski 

Hey, it's good to be here. Thanks for having me. 

 

Dusty Weis 

And congratulations are in order, by the way. I understand you've been named the Trusted Adviser of the Year by Field to Market the Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture. That has got to be incredibly gratifying to be recognized like that. Tell me a little bit more about the honor and what it means for the work that you do in the Northern High Plains? 

 

Christine Bielski 

Yeah, it really has been a humbling experience, and I feel really honored to have received that award. And it highlights the cool work that we're doing and the team effort that it took to get to where we are today. From my understanding of Field to Market, who gives out the award, they're all about transparency and data and science. 

And so to receive the award, it verifies that we are taking that science-backed approach to implementing sustainable practices in our area that I get to work with awesome growers and people. You know, my name might beyond the Trusted Adviser of the Year award this year, but it really is a team effort from growers all the way up to Sally Flis.  

 

Sally Flis 

Yeah, I'm super excited about it. I think I sent you an email beforehand that I hope they didn't cry while I was accepting it for you. After I saw the amazing video that Field to Market put together and I didn't, I made it through accepting without crying. But just super excited to see you and the work that you guys have done there, and the partnerships and the growers that we've built.  

To follow on that, the first time we had you on the podcast was in 2022, and we were talking about looking back on our carbon pilot from 2021, which feels like forever ago. I can't believe we're rolling into our fifth year of running a carbon sustainable ag type program at the company, and we've seen huge growth and change in the growers and the data and the way that we're managing things.  

So how have you felt over that five years since that original 2021 pilot to looking at enrolling growers for a fifth cropping season in 2025? 

 

Christine Bielski 

It is crazy to think it's been that long. I pulled up some numbers before the podcast, just looking at straight numbers. I mean, we'll talk about one program specifically.  

In 21, we had enrolled about 11 or 12,000 acres in that program, and in 2023 we had 133,000.  

I think the numbers speak for themselves. It's caught on in our area. I think a lot of the reason it has caught on is because a lot of the improvements that have been made since that first pilot program.  

The last time I was on the podcast, we were talking about areas where we could improve on the seamlessness of collecting the data, making sure we knew what information we needed from the growers before they signed up. 

And from that to where it is, is like night and day.  

You know, we have a solid team of customer success representatives from your team, Sally, that have really made this possible too. And they've been around for the last couple of years. So we have this streamlined process between your team and my team that makes this whole thing a lot easier to bring to a grower and say, okay, this is what you can expect. 

This is the kind of information we're going to need. These are the eligibility requirements. And it's cleared up a lot more since the beginning. And then as far as the digital side of things, you know, Agrible… the developments made there have been significant since the beginning. So it just makes the whole process easier. 

 

Dusty Weis 

Christine, those numbers that you cited, scaling up from 11 or 12,000 to 110, 120,000, are those specific to your territory, those numbers?  

 

Christine Bielski 

Yeah.  

 

Dusty Weis 

That's just that's incredible. And again, I think a testament to the fact that Nutrien Ag Solutions was able to take that feedback from the growers at that summit that we had in New Orleans back in 2022, and really incorporate it and use it to promote that 10x development, which is, again, just incredible. 

But can you remind us a little bit about your job in your territory in the Northern High Plains Division? 

 

Christine Bielski 

Sure. So my official title is Manager of Research and sustainability for the Northern High Plains Division. I am a part of the division staff. I'm in charge of the research, sustainability and then precision ag platforms as well. I also have two people working for me full-time that help support all three of those platforms because as you could probably imagine, it's a lot of different things going on at once. 

So my job is to help farmers implement high quality, repeatable research trials on their farms, help our sales guys use those trials to better understand how products perform, or just how different management practices results in plant health or yield or water savings, that kind of thing. And then on the sustainability side, my job is to work with all these programs that Sally develops and her team, and then try to find ways to implement them with our growers, specifically in this region, and then the precision ag side is filtering down all the different third party companies we could be working with into the ones that we feel will bring the most value to our growers. 

 

Dusty Weis 

And Northern High Plains Division encompasses what territory? Put it on a map for me. 

 

Christine Bielski 

I mean, roughly it's over 5 million acres from the Rocky Mountains, you know, Greeley, Colorado, Alliance, Nebraska to Stockton, Hays, Kansas, and then Yuma, Colorado. So we span a pretty big area.  

 

Sally Flis 

In that geography, Christine, I think there's a lot of unique challenges to where you work that makes sustainability a little bit bigger of a lift for some of your growers. Can you explain a bit some of the things that you guys deal with across such a vast geography that are going to impact the practices that growers will be interested in or able to implement when we talk about how we design and deploy these programs?  

 

Christine Bielski 

Across the Northern High Plains Division, we are blessed with so many different kinds of environments every single year. 

Most of the time not so beneficial to growing a crop.  

You know, our organic matter is sub-2 almost all the time. We'll see sub-1 organic matter. Our CECs range from 7 to 20, pH is anywhere from five to almost nine. And then soil tilth, your calcium magnesium based saturation ratio, we run on the tighter side of things. 

We're around that 3 to 5 calcium-ag ratio. And that means that it can be pretty difficult when we do get a rain event to get that water in the soil. So we have pretty tight soils. And most of our growers do practice no till or minimum till. So that's definitely a challenge.  

We have exceptional drought in at least one area of our division every year. I think we're just breaking out of it in some areas, you know, near Hill City, Kansas.  

But I was meeting with this grower and he said this is the first time he's had two failed crop seasons back to back in his whole farming career. And he's like 50 years old. He had just never seen that before.  

We get lots of hail. So you know when we do get rain we get excited but also scared to flip a coin and it's going to be hail. A lot of our region was wiped out last year. In fact, about 40% of our research trials we just had to give up on because it was pummeled to the ground.  

High winds… 70 mile an hour wind gusts, that happens out here, and then over 100 degree temperatures quite frequently throughout the summer. You'll get that for like two weeks.  

And then you talk about water availability. We have a lot of dry land acres. And then on our irrigated acres there's, in a lot of our area, water allocations. So for example, you have a five year window where you're allowed 15 inches per year. Some areas will let you carry over inches to the next year. Some areas won't.  

We’ve got our work cut out for us, but I feel like that's what make the people that I work was so great because they found ways to overcome all those obstacles and still grow some really great crops. And we see some of those nitrogen use efficiency scores or, you know, water use efficiency scores really, really competitive compared to other regions in the U.S. 

 

Dusty Weis 

I was going to say, Christine, with all those challenges that you outlined there, it sounds like as a grower in the Northern High Plains, you're expending so much effort just trying to survive, just trying to get something to grow.  

You spend a lot of your time trying to get as many local research plots going as possible in order to build grower trust in and openness to these sustainability products and practices. 

Given what these growers are facing, how are those efforts—trying to get them to focus on something that's not just surviving—how have those efforts been received, and what have been your big takeaways over the last five years here? 

 

Christine Bielski 

You're exactly right. I feel like in the past it has often times been that survival mindset. And in the last 6 to 10 years, maybe we’re starting to shift to one that focuses on optimizing everything we have, and maybe with a more positive ring to it, because we are seeing more successes.  

So it's really exciting to be in the business right now, because all these new tools and ways of thinking about farming, taking a more systems approach versus “I'm going to do the same thing I did last year because that's what dad did. That's what grandpa did.” And not taking that quantitative approach to it.  

So now we are focusing on everything we do with the research and sustainability stuff and precision ag bringing in programs there, whether it be variable rate prescriptions, population or fertility, whether it be bringing in, you know, drone imagery.  

And we talk about sustainability programs, but really everything we do is all just about increasing efficiency. The research that we do focuses on increasing efficiency in water use, fertilizer applications, hybrids, selection. Maybe we can find a hybrid that doesn't require as much water as another hybrid.  

Maybe it's splitting your fertilizer applications instead of dumping it all up front or applying it in the fall. Just being smarter with all of our inputs. We're just taking that quantitative approach or tying all these decisions and then measuring the impact of those decisions, whether it be for SAP testing or soil biology testing, and then ultimately yield at the end of the year. 

So we're taking a more quantitative approach to farming, and it seems to be paying off. And then making sure that we're applying the right products in the right places. And that takes an understanding of the soil—chemical, physical properties of the soil, but also the biology, too. So we're starting to dive down that side of things. And, you know, maybe you cut down on commodity fertilizer, but you add a carbon based product to it, and it increases the efficiency enough, it’s a wash economically. 

But you're getting more out of the yields. So the ROI is up.  

 

Sally Flis  

As we've seen, that growth from 12,000 or so acres enrolled in 2021 to over 100,000 acres enrolled in 2023. How is that conversation and how is the interest from grower customers changed over that timeline as you get out in the field to interact with growers around the products and services and programs?  

 

Christine Bielski 

It hasn't changed a whole lot other than having a neighbor that is signed up for one of the programs has helped other people feel more comfortable signing up for a program, and then just having our team have a couple years of experience under their belt helps in those conversations, because we can tell them exactly what they're going to be signing up for. 

 

Dusty Weis 

And that old standard of show me, don't tell me. And I want to see what this is doing before I put it on my own field. Certainly. What about the financial incentives? Because certainly that was something very breakthrough when it was rolled out a few years back by Nutrien Ag Solutions. But what have we learned about financially incentivizing these sustainability practices? 

 

Christine Bielski 

Well, that was one thing that changed from ‘21 to ‘23. The dollar sign attached to the program. In my experience, I found that if you can increase the incentive, I mean, it makes sense more people are going to be more willing to sign up for the program.  

Part of that financial aspect is, you know, where the markets are. If the value of the commodity is pretty high, you might have a harder time signing up growers versus if it's lower, they might be more willing to sign up. And I think we've seen that.  

And then it also helps that some of the programs that we offer to growers are tied to specific proprietary products that we sell and have proven to increase efficiency in yield. And so that really helps. Like, all right. Well, this is a win-win. It might be the last nudge they need to start using one of those products, because they then get a couple dollars or however many dollars back to help pay for that. And then they also get that increased ROI at the end of year. 

 

Dusty Weis 

Right. It makes sense. And I would imagine that some of the folks who we talked to a few years back in New Orleans had come into the program because they were actually just really interested in seeing what happened. They weren't as concerned with the financial incentives. I would imagine that it has opened the door and sort of broadened the tent, brought more people in who maybe aren't as much early adopters. 

So definitely want to dig down into that a little bit more as we continue the conversation. It's certainly been great to catch up and hear what's changed over the past few years, but coming up after the break, we want to turn our focus forward a little bit and talk about what the future holds for you, for the Northern High Plains Division and for sustainability in general. 

That's coming up in a moment here on the FARMSMART Podcast. 

 

Dusty Weis 

This is the FARMSMART Podcast presented by Nutrien Ag Solutions.  

I'm Dusty Weis, along with Sally Flis, and we're talking today with Christine Bielski, Northern High Plains Division Research and Sustainability Manager at Nutrien Ag Solutions.  

And Christine, in the work that you do, you are out there to collect data and use those data to answer big questions. But what are the big unanswered questions that you're hoping to tackle next? 

 

Christine Bielski 

I would say top of the list for us is focused around water efficiency. I know when I was on the podcast a couple of years ago, we talked about our water pro trials. We're still doing those. We are still learning every single year how to better irrigate, and we find that most people are so overwatering.  

And, you know, the biggest thing that I feel like people don't often consider is, every farming input decision that you make under a pivot assumes that you have your irrigation strategy spot on. 

And we're finding it's time to recalibrate the irrigation management with tools like soil water probes and autonomous pivot units, and actual equipment that will measure the water movement throughout the soil profile and compare that to plant use, and also pick up on nutrient movement throughout the soil profile. And then with that, how each hybrid actually responds differently in different conditions. 

So we kind of open up a Pandora's box where we found different brands of hybrids, you know, corn hybrids specifically we have the most information on. They’ll respond differently to different irrigation management systems.  

So we're trying to recalibrate the irrigation management. We found a lot of opportunities to cut back on how much water we can apply. You know, we have a trial result coming back from ‘24 that we were able to cut six inches from a grower’s irrigation plan for that year. We were at like 13 inches applied and they were at 19. And this was just splitting a pivot in half. And the yields were within two bushels of each other. So you talk about increased efficiency and knowing that water is only going to get harder and harder to come by, and these restrictions and allocations are only going to become heavier. That's definitely top of the list for us.  

Other things… continuing to test out new products that are coming down the pipeline, biological products specifically, we're doing a lot of testing there.  

And then continuing just to find ways to increase growers efficiency, whether that be by doing some check strips and prescription maps where we change the rate of the fertilizer or population, and then at the end of the year, see, okay, are we spot on with where we need to be with those rates? Are there opportunities where we can get the same yield or ROI but cut back on some of our inputs? And, you know, maybe it's not a total cutback on inputs, but it's reallocating that financial input into maybe a micronutrient that you hadn't been able to address before.  

So just taking that systems approach to farming and using technology and data to back up the decisions, we're just continuing to do that. 

 

Sally Flis 

So, Christine, that's a long list to go after in the 2025 cropping season. But I think the biggest theme I hear there, and that you mentioned in the first half of the podcast, is good agronomy data and insights. And so as you guys work with growers out in the field, what are the pieces that we've been able to bring to them through that report they get from Field to Market, or through the way you guys are analyzing the data that we're collecting in Agrible, that the growers are seeing a lot of value in, that they maybe weren't seeing a metric about something like that in the past.  

 

Christine Bielski 

Sure. So I'd say one of the coolest parts of that sustainability report is that benchmarking. Growers involved with these programs can see how their nitrogen use efficiency or emissions or irrigation use, how that compares to their neighbors and others in the program. 

That's been kind of like a nice pat on the back for most of our guys. The guys in these programs are usually doing such a good job.  

There's been a couple instances where the Agrible platform allowed a grower to take their notebook recordings of their farming practices and make them digital for free, and just helping them take all that information and put it in one spot. 

So that's been cool to see. Yeah, those are the two biggest benefits of that digital piece. With the sustainability programs, I can see. 

 

Dusty Weis 

Well, Christine, I could imagine that the growers always appreciate a visit from you as well. Certainly you bring a lot of expertise to the table. We appreciate your taking the time to catch up with us and fill us in on all the latest from the Northern High Plains Division. 

And congratulations once again on being named Trusted Adviser of the Year by Field to Market. Really exciting stuff there.  

Christine Bielski, Northern High Plains Division Research and Sustainability Manager at Nutrien Ag Solutions, thank you so much for joining us on this episode of the FARMSMART Podcast. 

 

Dusty Weis 

That is going to conclude this episode of The FARMSMART Podcast. New episodes arrive every month, so make sure you subscribe to The FARMSMART Podcast in your favorite app and visit nutrienagsolutions.com/FARMSMART to learn more.  

The FARMSMART Podcast is brought to you by Nutrien Ag Solutions, with editing by Emily Kaysinger. 

The FARMSMART Podcast is produced by Podcamp Media, branded podcast production for businesses. podcampmedia.com.  

I’m Dusty Weis. For Nutrien Ag Solutions, thanks for listening. 

 guess it's been a minute, October of 21 is what I'm seeing in the notes here. So it's probably about time that we had a little refresher as to what Agrible is and what role that it plays in our sustainable ag programs. So can you tee that up for us? 

 

Ryan Adams

Yeah, absolutely. So Agrible’s our digital tool set that we use to collect the data that we require to create our sustainable outcomes. So there's a whole range of different types of sustainability projects we can participate in from a footprint measurement type project through to a scope one or scope three carbon offset, which you've probably heard Sally talk about on the podcast. 

So, Agrible is the tool that we use to make sure all that data gets collected in a single spot and is in a form that we can then take it and package it off to different groups to run calculations or assessments on what's happening on the farm or just create an impact assessment of how that operation is performing.

 

Sally Flis

Ryan, there's a lot of digital platforms out there in the field. I don't think either of us or any of us on the call could probably list all of them, but we know there are a lot of them available for growers and for crop consultants, for data collection. So what makes Agrible a little bit different than some of those other platforms? And how are we connected to some of the ways that growers are already collecting data? 

 

Ryan Adams 

Yeah, it's a great point, Sally. And there's probably platforms we've never even heard of because the landscape is full of them. I think the piece that differentiates Agrible from the rest of the pack is the fact that we connect both the grower and the crop consultants or the trusted agronomists together in the same platform. So they can collaborate together on collecting the data that's required to create our sustainable outcomes.  

We also enable connection to many of those other platforms out there who have novel ways of calculating what the impact is. So we can capture the data from the growers on the farm and we can connect out to whoever we need for the quantification on the back end, assess the footprint of what's happening on their farm and then send it off for verification or validation down whichever pipe we need to for that specific grower and their specific farm and field.

 

Tom Daniel 

So Ryan, one of the key things that Sally and I talk about a lot, especially on the podcast, is just data collection and how important it is for growers to have a platform that they can put their data into and keep it stored for possible use later when there's revenue sources found forward, or you mentioned just a minute ago, the opportunities to attach it to other platforms that can provide outcome-based measurements, for instance.  

So one of the key pillars to the FarmSmart program is what we call the proof pillar. So, what drives the need for accurate collection of data in a sustainable ag space? Why is that so important?

 

Ryan Adams 

Yeah, ultimately we need good data to get good outcomes. There's the old adage with data that if you put garbage in, you're going to get garbage out. And we're trying to avoid getting garbage out. And so the programs that Sally designs for our team and that her team executes on getting us through verification, validation, in order to hit those, the goals and the, what's expected of us from a third party audit standpoint, we have to have good data. 

I think something else that's key brought up there, Tom, is we do have a platform where growers can store their data. And I think it's always important to bring up in the data conversation that the data belongs to the grower and they have to actively choose which program they want to participate in and where they want their data to go. It can safely and securely be stored in the platform and it doesn't have to go anywhere beyond a platform. 

And if you want it out, you hit delete and it can go out forever. I'll say with the exception of data that we have verified. A bunch of those verifications require us to keep records of the data set for a certain time period after validations that we can, if an auditor needs to come back and check what we did, they can come back and re-audit that data that was submitted.  

So with the exception of that data that's locked for holding in case of re-auditing, it belongs to the growers and it's their choice on where they want it to go and how they want it to be used.

 

Sally Flis

Ryan, we haven't covered, I know Tom and I say Agrible a lot on the podcast, but we haven't really covered Agrible's capabilities as Dusty mentioned for almost two years now. And I know we've made a lot of changes and improvements in the interaction. One of them you just mentioned that I think is pretty unique to this platform is that ability for the grower and their crop consultant to interact on the same platform kind of almost at the same time. 

 

Ryan Adams 

Yeah, that was one of our key pieces of feedback, mostly from our field team, but also from growers, is that they're working on a daily basis with their agronomists to make their plans on their farm. And they needed their agronomists to be able to interact with them in these sustainable data sets and be able to put their input into what's happening on the farm.  

And one of the constraints we have with trying to get verified outcomes is that we have to have an explicit audit trail on who put what data into the system, when they put it in, what did they change. And you can't do that if you have multiple people sitting down at the keyboard. 

So to enable that functionality, we expanded use so that our crop consultants and agronomists can log in. They can input the data for what's happening on the farm or field, be able to help fulfill those records that they're already capturing in their field today. And then be able to have the grower come in as well and they can participate as much or as little as they want to fulfill that record and fill in their field story. 

 

Dusty Weis

Ryan, I think that's actually a really brilliant feature to include in the thing. As a small business owner myself, I know that my QuickBooks is the same way where I log in on the regular, or at least I'm supposed to, to keep track of my expenses. And then at the end of the year or throughout the year, my accountant can log into that same account and see what I'm doing in there and verify or fix the things that I messed up.  

And I imagine that all of those are some of the benefits of being able to have your own crop consultant log in and work with the data that you've accumulated in Agrible. We mentioned at the beginning of this, that this is the first time that we've talked about Agrible in more than two years on the podcast here, at least at length. And so that's certainly one improvement that's been made over that time span.

What are some of the other things that have been added on or improved about Agrible over the last two years? 

 

Ryan Adams 

Yeah, one of the biggest things we've improved upon are the types of programs that we can support within the sustainability space. So two years, when you guys would have talked about Agrible, the focus would have been primarily around measurement and footprint assessments. So those types of programs look at what activities are happening on the farm and it assesses the greenhouse gas or ecological footprints of what's happening on that farm.  

And we've taken that and we've gone a few steps further. So now we work in more of the different carbon markets. We've explored soil organic carbon projects and we've expanded Agrible to support that type of project going into both a scope one or scope three. 

And really the difference for that, anyone listening, it's the level of rigor that we have to put the data set through in order to get to verification. It's largely the same data set, which again, we should be picking Sally's brain on exactly how that works.  

But we can support those highly detailed projects for carbon and we can send it to those higher levels of verification and auditing to get those higher level outcomes, which ultimately hold more value for the grower. We've also expanded it to support other types of sustainability programs such as nitrogen management, which is our SNO program that you guys have talked about, I think quite extensively across the podcasts.

 

Tom Daniel

Ryan, I know one of the changes that's happening within Agrible now is that the geography that the platform can service is expanding. Also, can you kind of go into that a little bit? 

 

Ryan Adams 

That's right. So since 2021, we've expanded support of Agrible to cover both all of continental US and Canada. So starting in the new year, 2024, we will be enrolling our sustainable nitrogen outcomes program in Canada in Agrible.  

We've added all of the support we need for that different growing climate and all sorts of different things that we see between US and Canada, like our units of measure and even our farming practices, there's enough difference in the practices. We had to change some of those data collection models so that we could support both geographies.

 

Sally Flis

So Ryan, one of the questions we get from the field all the time, and I'm sure you've heard this too, is does the grower have to have digital data in order to participate or in order to get data into Agrible or to provide evidence? So what have we got set up in Agrible or in some of across with connections to our other digital tools that help accommodate that evidence piece of the data collection we're doing with growers? 

 

Ryan Adams 

Yeah, absolutely. So to answer the first part of your question, do they need digital data? The answer is no. Although digital data definitely helps alleviate some of the lift and some of the work that those growers or crop consultants would have to do to get the program set up. So we integrate today with our Echelon platform, which for those unfamiliar with that, Echelon is the precision egg platform that Nutrien Ag Solutions uses across North America, both US and Canada. 

And in that platform, we can collect as-applied data from any type of machinery that can collect as applied data. We have connections to the Raven Slingshot system to Bayer's Climate Fieldview and we also have access to My John Deere data through Echelon. 

And so we can collect a lot of the field practice information through those digital data sources. And using that, that can create the evidence file for what actually happened on the farm. 

But aside from creating the evidence, it can also create the actual data for what happened. In the absence of that, however, we can still collect field level data for how the fields were managed and what practices were implemented on the farm. And we don't have to get that machine log data if that technology doesn't exist on your farm.

 

Tom Daniel

So Ryan, if I'm a grower today and I want to take a look at Agrible, how do I get to it? How do I enroll in it? And what are some steps I go through that can actually tell me if I can qualify for a program or not? 

 

Ryan Adams 

Yeah, so the easiest way to go to it is just type in Agrible.com, A-G-R-I-B-L-E.com. And that's going to land you on the Agrible homepage. From there, you can create an account if you don't already have a Nutrien Digital Hub account. Any of our customers though that have their Nutrien Digital Hub account, it's another upgrade we've done over the last couple of months. 

Is you can log in with the same credentials you use to access your Nutrien Digital Hub account. And it's also going to bring the data over from your Digital Hub. So any field boundaries, any fields that exist in the Hub also now exist in Agrible. 

Once you get into Agrible, you can self-screen for any programs that are in your area that you're eligible for, or you can also reach out to sustainableag@nutrien.com and get connected with one of our sustainability specialists that can get you into one of our invite-only programs that likely exist in your area. 

 

Sally Flis

Ryan, a big piece of this at the end is the reporting, not just to auditors or downstream that you've mentioned a little bit, but the reporting back to the growers. So what can a grower, when they complete entering their data into Agrible, expect to see about what they've done on their fields for the year? 

 

Ryan Adams 

One of the pillars of Agrible that's existed since that call in 2021 is field level reporting for what the farm is doing in a sustainable way on their farm. So we do field level reporting from either field to market or Cool Farm Alliance today. It depends on your geography and what's available for the specific crop you're growing on your farm. 

But we look at field specific metrics around the nitrogen use that's occurring on your field. We look at the water use efficiency that's occurring on your field and the general greenhouse gas emissions from the practices that you have on that field specific dataset. 

However, we also look at how that aggregates across your farm and we even compare it to the other farms that are in your local geography growing the same crops. So you can see how your operation is comparing to similar farms which are totally anonymized, so you can't go picking on your neighbors, but it does let you know how your farm performs or how your specific fields perform relative to the pack around you. 

 

Tom Daniel 

Ryan, if I'm a grower out here today that's getting some pressure from whoever I may be selling my commodity to, whether it be corn going into an ethanol facility or maybe wheat that's going into a flour mill, but they're asking about sustainability metrics.  

Can Agrible provide that type of information back that could be used to supply to a downstream buyer or a processor that may be buying my commodity product?

 

Ryan Adams 

Yeah, so Agrible can definitely provide the current footprint of that farm operation. I would say for those specific providers, we should get those growers set up in a project that's already set up with those downstream providers.  

And the reason I say that is each of these downstream operators generally need a specific piece of data that works for whatever reason is causing them to come to your farm and ask for this impact report. And knowing that minutiae or fine point detail what they're actually looking for can help us tailor what we're actually collecting on and give the right report to actually fulfill the need. So we can do the footprint analysis. 

We can absolutely look at kind of what's going on your farm and give an assessment of where you sit. similar to your neighbors and those around you. But I think it is best that you engage through a setup campaign or project that works with that downstream supplier. And we can make sure we're getting them the right data for what they need to satisfy their downstream customers. 

 

Sally Flis

Ryan, there is a lot of data required for a lot of the programs that we're running, especially the carbon facing programs. And we often get asked in the field, is there like a data light version that we can do to provide this reporting?  

And just curious your thoughts on what is the value of having this really complete data set that we asked for in Agrible versus having to cherry pick or pick and choose what elements we record from the field?

 

Ryan Adams 

Great question, Sally, and we are on this perpetual hunt for the data light version that's going to enable us to complete these programs without having to sit in front of a keyboard for hours collecting data. The biggest piece of value behind collecting the curated data set, that is what actually happened on the farm, is it gives us the highest chance of getting to a verified outcome.  

A lot of these remote sensing or remote source data sets that we're seeing hit the market, they are fairly accurate, but so far most of them haven't been accurate enough to actually fulfill the need of what an auditor or a downstream partner wants to see to complete a true sustainability assessment on a field or at a farm level.

As we get some of these automated data sets coming in, we can use that detailed data set as a springboard to launch us into checking that the automated data sets coming in actually makes sense relative to what happens on your farm. 

 

Dusty Weis

Well, Ryan, it's certainly a great reminder, not only about the value of data, but the rate at which the world of technology is changing all around us. And certainly, it's worth popping back in to take a look at Agrible again here after everything that's changed over the last two years, so we appreciate you walking us through all of that. 

Ryan Adams, Nutrien Ag Solutions Director of Digital Sustainability. Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of the FARMSMART Podcast.

 

Ryan Adams 

Thank you. 

 

Dusty Weis

That’s going to conclude this episode of The FARMSMART Podcast. New episodes arrive every month, so make sure you subscribe to The FARMSMART Podcast in your favorite app and visit (nutrienagsolutions.com/FARMSMART) to learn more.  

And of course, we wish the very best to Tom as he prepares for his retirement in a few weeks. I can speak for the entire sustainability team when I say what a rare pleasure it’s been to work with him and learn from him. Thank you for all you’ve done, and best wishes for well-deserved relaxation and great memories with your family in the years to come. 

The FARMSMART Podcast is brought to you by Nutrien Ag Solutions. Our executive producer is Connor Erwin, and the show is edited by Matt Covarrubias. The FARMSMART Podcast is produced by Podcamp Media, branded podcast production for businesses, podcampmedia.com. I’m Dusty Weis. For Nutrien Ag Solutions, thanks for listening.