Projects
Featured Projects
Members of the Midwest Row Crop Collaborative jointly develop, fund, and implement a variety of innovative programs and pilot projects designed to test approaches that can accelerate new solutions.
Because soil properties differ according to climate, geology, topography, and land use and management history on a field, “healthy soil” can look different in different places. A multi-solution approach is needed, working on the ground in various local contexts across the shared Midwestern landscape. The Collaborative has a portfolio of projects with the potential for learning and replication across a range of contexts. All of the work that members do together serves a larger purpose—to demonstrate and share project successes, barriers encountered, and lessons learned to inspire action.
Project Map
Cover Crop Cost Share Program – Iowa and Nebraska
ActivePepsiCo, Unilever, and Cargill partner with Practical Farmers of Iowa (PFI) to provide financial and technical support to farmers and promote shared learning to remove barriers to the adoption of regenerative practices. The companies built a cost share program to help farmers add cover crops, reduced tillage, diverse crop rotation,…
Full Supply Chain Collaboration – Nebraska
ActiveIn a partnership between Cargill and PepsiCo, farmers are provided with the data and economic analyses to demonstrate the economic opportunity of cover crop practice adoption, and Practical Farmers of Iowa provides producers with agronomic assistance and peer-to-peer networks. This project’s model leverages the value of supply chain partners…
Precision Conservation Management – Illinois
ActiveCollaborative members PepsiCo and The Nature Conservancy have teamed up with Precision Conservation Management, a program of the Illinois Corn Growers Association, to enroll growers in a program that provides an economic analysis of options for soil health interventions, peer-to-peer networks, and access to cost share for first-time acres. This…
Supporting U.S. Farmers
ActiveIn 2019, Kellanova (formerly Kellogg Company) and The Nature Conservancy launched the Supporting U.S. Farmers project to provide farmers producing corn, wheat, and rice with funds and technical assistance to improve their practices. Through this partnership, MRCC members are providing farmers with funds and technical assistance to implement conversation practices…
Supporting U.S. Farmers
ActiveIn 2019, Kellanova (formerly Kellogg Company) and The Nature Conservancy launched the Supporting U.S. Farmers project to provide farmers producing corn, wheat, and rice with funds and technical assistance to improve their practices. Through this partnership, MRCC members are providing farmers with funds and technical assistance to implement conversation practices…
Supporting U.S. Farmers
ActiveIn 2019, Kellanova (formerly Kellogg Company) and The Nature Conservancy launched the Supporting U.S. Farmers project to provide farmers producing corn, wheat, and rice with funds and technical assistance to improve their practices. Through this partnership, MRCC members are providing farmers with funds and technical assistance to implement conversation practices…
Supporting U.S. Farmers
ActiveIn 2019, Kellanova (formerly Kellogg Company) and The Nature Conservancy launched the Supporting U.S. Farmers project to provide farmers producing corn, wheat, and rice with funds and technical assistance to improve their practices. Through this partnership, MRCC members are providing farmers with funds and technical assistance to implement conversation practices…
Full Supply Chain Collaboration – Nebraska
ActiveIn a partnership between Cargill and PepsiCo, farmers are provided with the data and economic analyses to demonstrate the economic opportunity of cover crop practice adoption, and Practical Farmers of Iowa provides producers with agronomic assistance and peer-to-peer networks.
This project’s model leverages the value of supply chain partners by training Cargill originators to provide outreach, improving scalability beyond direct program participants.
Precision Conservation Management – Illinois
ActiveCollaborative members PepsiCo and The Nature Conservancy have teamed up with Precision Conservation Management, a program of the Illinois Corn Growers Association, to enroll growers in a program that provides an economic analysis of options for soil health interventions, peer-to-peer networks, and access to cost share for first-time acres.
This program’s results have revealed a strong grower appetite for soil health-building interventions when the economic case for soil health is demonstrated, providing farmer benefit and enabling substantial greenhouse gas reductions.
Supporting U.S. Farmers
ActiveIn 2019, Kellanova (formerly Kellogg Company) and The Nature Conservancy launched the Supporting U.S. Farmers project to provide farmers producing corn, wheat, and rice with funds and technical assistance to improve their practices.
Through this partnership, MRCC members are providing farmers with funds and technical assistance to implement conversation practices such as cover crops, conservation tillage, nutrient management, vegetative buffers, irrigation efficiency, and wetland restoration, and are demonstrating that agriculture can significantly contribute to improved environmental outcomes.
Verified Outcomes in Illinois
ActiveMRCC members Nutrien and PepsiCo collaborate with Ingredion and the Soil and Water Outcomes Fund to provide financial incentives and agronomic advisory to build on-farm conservation for producers growing corn.
The program, underway since 2020, helps producers add cover crops, no-till, and nutrient management into their operations. The goal is to catalyze farmer adoption of practices that generate measurable carbon reductions.
Together We'll Go Further
The Midwest Row Crop Collaborative engages with a variety of partners, ranging from project implementers, technical advisors, and solutions developers to funders and thought leaders working on new policy and practices supporting systems change. If you see opportunities to align our work with yours, we’re eager to hear from you.