On the most recent episode of the Cover Crop Strategies Podcast, I spoke with Zach Larson and Tyler Williams, 2 sustainable systems agronomists with Bayer. 

You can see Larson and other Bayer agronomists here, working out in the field, which is part of the support that comes with Bayer’s ForGround program. ForGround seeks to make it easier for farmers to adopt regenerative agriculture practices, such as cover crops, and provides them with resources for doing so.

We started this about a year ago, really kind of focused on three areas. The agronomic and sort of the science behind what we're doing.

A lot of what Zach's expertise are in, you know, the, the science behind soil health and cover crops. And, especially that's kind of what our team's designed to do is how can we help agronomically make some of these things happen? So we have kind of a team focused around that resources, content, things that we can put together to help growers do that.

The other piece and that we hear a lot about it was, you mentioned was the economics and sort of some of the barriers. Financially upfront that, that it takes to be a part of it. So we work with a number of folks and try to collaborate and bring discounts and resources and services or tools that partners can kind of come in and say, Hey, you know, we can provide this service to growers.

They allow our growers to have discounts for some of those services. And again, just to help them take that next step and, and reduce that barrier to entry. And then the last thing that usually gets a lot of the buzz and the attention, at least as of late is that revenue stream or that added straight income that can come from adopting these practices.

And so that's again, kind of another key component of foreground is bringing those revenue opportunities that. You know, can get growers over those hurdles to that that it might take to, to start something or help reduce the risk or take off a little bit of the sting if you're going to make that first purchase.

Hear the full conversation between myself, Zach and Tyler at covercropstrategies.com/podcasts.