Developing sustainable supply and value chains for grassland agriculture – for people, planet, and prosperity.
Critical to the success of grassland-based agriculture is the development of sustainable supply chains or SSCs.
Sustainable supply chains (SSCs) link on-farm production to end-use markets, while meeting economic, environmental and social sustainability criteria that are demanded by stakeholders. SSCs support farmers and producers, communities, and all participants in the supply chain.
The main focus of the Grassland 2.0 supply chain work is to:
- Facilitate market pull for products of regenerative agriculture such as grass-fed meat and dairy.
- Investigate and support the formation of appropriate financial mechanisms to facilitate farmer and supply chain transitions. This work includes both farm-level needs but also financing for processing, distribution and marketing infrastructure.
- Investigate and support markets for ecosystem services from both private sources and government policy mechanisms, to move value through the supply chain, looking especially at the value proposition for farmers. Ecosystem services are environmental benefits that arise from healthy landscapes including carbon capture, reduction in nutrient run off, soil health and water quality, among others.
We are in the process of working with stakeholders to establish at least two pilot sites for this work.
The Grassland 2.0 Supply Chain Development work is connected with the University of Minnesota Forever Green Initiative. The team includes input from Croatan Institute staff on innovative finance mechanisms.