A new conservation data collaboration launching in November could give farmers clearer insight into which practices are gaining traction in their region and help justify conservation investments on their operations.
The Conservation Technology Information Center (CTIC) will unveil Viridis View on Nov. 19 at the Sustainable Agriculture Summit in Fort Worth, Texas. The free, interactive platform pools county-level conservation data from multiple providers to show where practices like cover crops, reduced tillage and nutrient management are being adopted and how that adoption is changing over time, according to Ryan Heiniger, CTIC executive director.
What Farmers Will Get
The platform brings together data from DTN, Iowa State University, Regrow, Terion AI and TerraDiagnostics into a single viewer accessible to farmers, researchers, conservation groups, government agencies and agribusinesses.
Unlike periodic reports that offer conservation snapshots, Viridis View is designed to provide ongoing information farmers and their advisers can use to:
- Benchmark their operations against regional conservation trends
- Identify where practices are expanding and potentially delivering results
- Make the case for conservation investments by showing adoption patterns and potential environmental returns
- Target resources to practices and locations with the greatest impact potential
Why It Matters Now
As conservation program funding expands and more food companies set sustainability requirements, farmers need credible data to evaluate which practices make sense for their operations and how to demonstrate their conservation efforts.
“Better conservation data leads to better conservation decisions,” says Heiniger, in a release. “By bringing together diverse partners around a shared vision for conservation benchmarking, we can provide better information that supports smarter investments, stronger conservation programs and measurable environmental progress.”
Practices including cover crops, reduced tillage, nutrient stewardship and edge-of-field buffers can reduce erosion, build soil health, protect water quality and improve drought resilience. But CTIC contends knowing where those practices work and proving their value requires consistent, transparent data across geographies and over time.
Building On A Proven Framework
CTIC already provides public conservation estimates through its Operational Tillage Information System (OpTIS). Viridis View expands that foundation by establishing common benchmarking methods across multiple data sources and geographic scales.
The collaborative effort around Viridis View launched with a June 3 workshop in Raleigh, N.C., bringing together 50 experts from universities, conservation groups, technology companies and state and federal agencies. Anchor funding comes from the Walton Family Foundation, with support from the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research, The Nature Conservancy and North Carolina State University.
The Nov. 19 workshop at the Sustainable Agriculture Summit will include information from project data providers and steering committee members and is open to Summit attendees.
