This week, we gathered with more than 100 of our closest friends and colleagues in Nashville at the 5th annual Trust In Food Symposium. Themed around a “Climate-Smart State of Mind,” more than 30 leaders representing every facet of the value chain and regenerative ag community shared their best thinking on how we must evolve to meet the challenges in front of us. My biggest takeaway from the full day of conversations is this: What got us here won’t get us there. In other words, engaging mainstream or middle-adopter producers at scale is going to take a fresh set of approaches and perspectives. We heard from a number of folks who are already taking action, from farmer organizations and food companies organizing farmer-to-farmer learning for dairy, to agribusinesses introducing biologicals to complement and provide alternatives to synthetic inputs; to technology companies and NGOs building a robust digital ecosystem and creating financial risk-sharing capabilities across the value chain. The conversation reinforced the key finding of a new report we launched together with Field to Market at our Symposium. Our work together shows there is a Golden Triangle of approaches that work together synergistically: technical assistance, innovative financing and keen attention to the human dimensions of change. “Human dimensions” sounds like new terminology, but it’s actually a stunningly simple idea. It means tailoring our solutions to meet each individual producer's wants and needs. The information, technology and approaches exist to do so. And based on our conversations during the past three days, I’m confident we have the will to do so within the regenerative ag community as well. One final note: Be sure to register for next week’s free, all-virtual Symposium featuring 10 great new speakers and much more climate-smart ag content and analysis. We’ll hear from global food retailer Walmart about its journey to becoming a regenerative company; visit with NRCS executives about the agency’s commitment to building a more inclusive U.S. agriculture system that supports historically underserved producers; and learn from farmers, organizations and researchers on the cutting edge of scaling climate-smart solutions. See you online! Yours in regenerative ag,
Amy Skoczlas Cole
Executive Vice President, Trust In Food™ | 
