Due to the growing number of climate-smart programs that are available to growers, it can be hard to navigate. That’s just what the Conservation Connector was intended to change.
Developed by The Conservation Technology Information Center (CTIC) and its partners (The Nature Conservancy, Houston Engineering and OpenTeam), the Conservation Connector is an online directory that allows users to easily view and sort through the programs relevant to them in one place.
“There’s a huge growth in the number of program offerings out there to help farmers put conservation practices to work on the ground. It’s a little bit confusing for folks, because people don’t necessarily have any single place where they can go to find out what’s really available to them - other than just a generic Google search,” says Dave Gustafson, CTIC conservation connector project director. “The Connector is intended to be a very quick and easy-to-use tool right now that focuses on farmers to find all the programs and providers that are relevant for their location, for their commodities of interest, and for the practices and incentive types that are of interest to them.”
The Conservation Connector can be found at connector.ag. Gustafson says the programs on the platform have been preloaded by CTIC staff, but there are plans to shift that in the future toward a self-registry process.
“We did our best to get very accurate information, and in many cases, the data resulted from a one-on-one interview between our intern and the program administrator. However, our process going forward is to request that all of those program administrators and service providers do regular quarterly updates to their information.”
And while the majority of programs currently on the platform are located in the upper Midwest, each U.S. state is represented - as well as Puerto Rico. That list will be expanding in the months ahead to also include more livestock offerings.
“We have been in conversation with a number of different partners, such as dairy and other commodity groups, to help make sure our directories are as accurate as possible,” Gustafson says. “The kinds of different conservation offerings that will be available in the connector will broaden significantly over time.”
The team plans to officially launch the farmer-facing side of The Connector sometime toward the end of August. For more detailed information on how to use the directory, check out the CTIC YouTube page.
