As we head into the second month of our nation’s COVID-19 pandemic, many of our day-to-day business norms have been altered if not ground to a halt. Rural America hasn’t been spared from this. Despite reports saying the worst is yet to come, ag retailers and farmers are already stepping up to defend our nation’s food supply to keep food on grocery shelves and meals on families’ tables.

That’s not to so say our food systems and supply chains haven’t been strained. We could very well look back and realize this was a time that fundamentally changed the way we get work done in the agriculture industry. WinField United is focused on helping our Advanced Acre Alliance of local ag retailers best serve their farmers. We’re committed to providing services and solutions to support these tireless heroes – and the rural communities they live in – who work to help keep our country fed through today’s challenge.

Ag Retailers

As a reverse-ownership system, we can harness our network’s collective strength to provide unique solutions to help local ag retailers continue to be vital resources for the farmers and communities they serve through:

• Supply chain integration and best practices that ensure ag retailers have product in stock when farmers take to the field and all season long.
• An omnichannel platform – Advanced Acre Cx – that leverages digital fulfillment capabilities, online commerce platforms and customized insights to help retailers deliver what farmers need, when they need it and how they want it.
• Being responsible stewards of our system’s resources and sharing our profits with our valued owners, not sending them off to some anonymous Wall Street investor.

Farmers

The productivity of America’s farmers is second to none, but we need farmers around for the long haul so we’re here to support the profitability of each and every acre by utilizing:

• Digital tools retailers and farmers can use to manage their acres when face-to-face interactions are limited. We set out to provide a validated level of certainty and predictability so that every input generates a return.
• A groundbreaking agronomic prescription service called Advanced Acre^™ Rx that includes a season-long plan driven by 6 million annual data points from our Answer Plot^® network. The Advanced Acre Rx service drives a return on farmers’ input investments and offers a service warranty for performance (yield) to give growers the confidence to invest even in tough economic times.
• Financing options through Secure that give growers the freedom to continue to invest wisely in their crops. Secure can be used as part of the Advanced Acre Rx service or as standalone service for growers looking for financing.

Rural Communities

As a society, we rely on rural communities to feed the world, but the pandemic is shining a spotlight on the challenges facing these communities. Thankfully, as a part of Land O’Lakes, Inc., we have a 100-year track record of supporting American farmers and rural communities by:

• Encouraging our retail owners to take advantage of the Land O’Lakes Member Match program that match their charitable donations dollar-for-dollar.
• Leading a long-term effort to deploy broadband in rural locations while, in the short-term, offering Wi-Fi access at select Land O’Lakes-owned facilities and asking our retail owners to join us in this effort.
• Working with legislators and regulators at the state and federal level to bring attention to the challenges agriculture is facing and identify short- and long-term solutions to support our retail network and their farmers.

The COVID-19 pandemic could fundamentally shift agriculture and rural communities. I believe WinField United and our Advanced Acre Alliance of local retail-owners are in a great position to help farmers and rural communities continue to thrive.

I am humbled by the opportunity to serve those proudly defending our nation’s food supply. Thank you all.