agribusinessreview.comDEC-JAN9having the largest impact on the landscape moving forward. This different outlook on conservation openly displays the options available to farmers to improve the environment and their business, and not just as a vague claim of "it's the right thing to do".Because of this lack of awareness of conservation practices, Heartland has instituted a sales approach that is nearly identical to the standard sales agronomist or crop specialist's pitch to improve the productivity of an operation. This approach uses dedicated Conservation Agronomists to help tailor conservation solutions to a farmer's operation and ensure productivity and profitability for years to come while accessing available funding to alleviate as much financial burden as possible. Through deliverables, expectations, marketing, and outreach, Heartland Co-op has turned conservation into an active part of everyday agriculture, rather than a passive afterthought. We set conservation deliverables for ourselves the way a sales agronomist sets sales goals. Through this structure, Heartland's Conservation Team has positioned 62,035 acres of cover crops, 2,300 acres of no-till/strip-till adoption, 2,240 acres of improved nutrient management, 147 acres of prairie restoration, 124 saturated buffers or bioreactors, three ponds, and one wetland over the last two and half years.This innovation in the conservation space has created huge demand for the Heartland Co-op Conservation Department both from the growers they serve, but also in collaborations with public agencies and private industries. These public-private partnerships are groundbreaking in creating a space where partners with different perspectives on agriculture can come together to achieve common goals. The Practical Farmers of Iowa Cover Crop Cost Share Program, the Central Iowa Cover Crop Partnership, and the Lower Cedar Watershed Management Plan are three primary public/private partnerships Heartland Co-op is a part of. These partnerships create unique opportunities for farmers to implement conservation through first of its kind services, and extensive funding dedicated to these practices.With a commitment to serving Midwest farmers, Heartland Co-op's Conservation Department has two goals: One, we will continue to be an instrumental part of farming operations to maximize productivity, profitability, and longevity to keep farming a generational labor of love, and; Two, we will bring upstream and downstream environmental stakeholders to the table with farmers to create long-lasting and truly effective partnerships that focus on real conservation deliverables instead of continued inaction through division.
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