Sustainable wheat for your favorite snacks
Jan 26, 2021
From: Cambell
Here at Campbell, wheat is a key ingredient in many of our most popular cookies, crackers, and breads. The Bair and Mays farms are two of our wheat partners whose stewardship efforts are driving positive change. Read their stories and learn how their sustainability work is not only the right thing for the planet, but the right thing for the success of their farms.
Bair Farms: Land is a farmer’s largest asset
On Bair Farms in Wyandot County, Ohio, Nate Bair, his father Neil, and brother Ryan farm corn, soybeans and wheat, and raise cattle. Like many farmers, the Bair’s recognize that their land is their largest asset and know that the best way to protect that asset is to use sustainable farming practices.
Five years ago, Bair Farms decided to use cover crops on their entire farm, which is a strategy of growing a specific crop for the primary benefit of the soil. Shortly after, they converted their farm to “no-till,” a technique for growing crops without disturbing the soil through tillage like digging, stirring and overturning. Why the change? Nate explained, “Why would we want to keep losing organic matter from our soils rather than building it?”
Their cover crop strategy is creating a noticeable difference in their fields, even with the ever-changing weather conditions that farmers have been facing today.
“We try to talk to as many different no-till farmers and cover crop farmers as we can,” Nate says about the learning curve to adopting sustainable practices. “If you work together, you can get to where you want to be—not just on a single farm, but across a county, state and the country.”
Click here to read the full story >