National Corn Growers Association

Sean Arians

The Journey behind Advancing Sustainable Production

My experience farming my own row crop operation has most shaped how I approach advancing sustainable production. I know what it takes to implement no-till or cover crops because I’ve done them myself. I know the economic and environmental challenges that come when adopting something new and the inherent risk presented.

However, my professional experience brings a nice balance to my personal perspective, too. I’ve been on the equipment, technology, input and agronomy side professionally and seen first-hand how farmer customers operate, how they approach decision-making, what hesitations they have to adoption, and struggles they see in different geographies. It’s given me a much bigger picture of the U.S. farmer than my own individual experiences. Now in my role with NCGA, I can feel confident saying I’m representing U.S. corn farmers’ differing perspectives. 

Building Stakeholder Alignment for Sustainability Success

Successful engagement comes down to connections. To purposefully engage, we need to make connections in people’s minds that corn can be a part of an organization’s value chain – including as a raw material, feed and/or fuel in their existing supply chains. It’s not easy – people don’t always think about corn as an option – so we’re trying to make it easier to digest and make those connections – both people and product. 

We also try to be nimble in conversations. With corn’s wide range of uses, we navigate a variety of business objectives to meet potential customer where they are, while also bringing farmers’ perspectives on what can realistically be accomplished. 

Bridging Environmental Responsibility and Economic Performance

The biggest challenge is actually baseline knowledge: farmers are already practicing sustainability in a wide range of ways today. It’s not a secret on our end, but that doesn’t always trickle down. It’s a misnomer that environmental goals can’t be aligned with economic feasibility, farmers are doing it already.

Farmers manage their inputs, their chemistry and fertilizer down to the micro-level. They’re using variable rates where they can and following (pesticide) label instructions. This is both environmentally and economically feasible.

We’d really love for people to start from where U.S. corn farmers are today. We’re not dealing with the same social or environmental sustainability issues our peers in other countries are facing, whether it’s open burning or even child labor. Those issues are already regulated here and don’t need additional frameworks to further complicate them.

We want our partners to start from the point of U.S. farms’ differentiation, understanding farmers already work toward environmental outcomes that also deliver economic benefits.

Once we establish that baseline, the conversations go better and our outcomes are stronger.

The Gaps in Data and Reporting Slowing Agricultural Sustainability

There are two main ways that I see frameworks throwing up barriers to progress. First: building an idealistic vs. realistic framework. It may be surprising, but there are frameworks that set forth unreachable goals – goals that farmers have no way of measuring. Yet, there are many things that farmers are doing and measuring today left off frameworks in the name of perfection.

The other way I see progress being held back? Where the value is placed in the supply chain.

A lot of times,  incentives are placed in the middle of the value chain. Unfortunately, that means farmers aren’t realizing that value for implementing those practices. Without that market signal, frameworks do not meet their adoption goals.

The Future of Value Chain Partnerships in Agriculture

Over my tenure in agriculture, collaboration in sustainability circles has evolved in a positive direction for sure. Most companies today recognize farmers are the start of their value chain and want them at the table but still struggle at having those meaningful connections.

I hear from so many companies their desire to have farmers at the table, yet they plan conferences in times that active farmers aren’t available: April, May, June and October, November. Farmers can’t move their planting or harvest – so we need our partners to control their controllables.

Ultimately, success comes down to those two variables I mentioned previously: realistic measurements and pointing value directly to the farmers. PepsiCo is one company implementing realistic changes at scale. They came to the table with farmers and agronomists to create a program where farmers see the value from implementing practices on their farm and PepsiCo is meeting their objectives thanks to the measurements being reported.   

I believe more programs can be done at scale if we continue working together to control what we can and recognize the uncontrollables in farming – striving for improvement, not perfection.