By Jennifer Whitlock
Field Editor
John Deere is collaborating with Field to Market: The Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture on a pilot program that incorporates Field to Market’s Fieldprint® Platform with Deere’s Operations Center farm data management system.
Data collected from the integrated platforms can be used by cotton farmers to further demonstrate their commitment to good land stewardship using Fieldprint Platform’s eight sustainability metrics.
“We are excited to continue this legacy by championing digital innovations that help our customers document and demonstrate their sustainability impact,” Alexey Rostapshov, head of John Deere Labs and Sustainability, said. “Enabling farmers to more easily assess their Field to Market sustainability metrics and share these down the supply chain is an important step in helping improve our customers’ productivity, profitability and sustainability.”
The pilot program gives cotton farmers access to the power of collaborative data-collection systems.
“The combination of the Fieldprint Platform’s sustainability metrics with John Deere’s precision technology platform will equip farmers with a powerful tool for measuring and advancing their stewardship and impact,” Brandon Hunnicutt, Chair of Field to Market’s board of directors, said. “By leveraging a streamlined approach to collecting sustainability data, John Deere is simplifying and scaling farmers’ access to a robust analysis of their environmental performance.”
Cotton farmers can use this data when signing up for the U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol, a supply chain-wide sustainability initiative of the U.S. cotton industry.
The data integration will support continuous progress and enrollment goals of the Trust Protocol, allowing enrolled farmers to measure environmental impacts of their operation and identify opportunities for further improvement, according to John Deere.
“This collaboration between Field to Market and John Deere is a significant step forward in streamlining data collection and creates an excellent opportunity to expand participation in the Trust Protocol program,” Dr. Gary Adams, president of the U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol, said.
John Deere plans to evaluate future integration of Fieldprint into additional crops, providing farmers of all commodities fact-based methods to share their sustainability practices with consumers across the world.
More information on Field to Market’s Fieldprint Platform is available here, and more information on John Deere’s Operations Center is here.