SCOTTSDALE, AZ - Walmart is taking a stand to help foster AgTech improvements that would enhance communication between the farmer and the retailer. In collaboration with The Sustainability Consortium (TSC), the retailer, through its Walmart Foundation, will be offering a $375,000 grant to help fund the improvement of agricultural systems, not only to increase efficiency, but also to make them sustainable in the long-term.

"By improving communication flow between farms and manufacturing and ultimately, retail, this project will increase the demand signal for sustainable farming practices and improve data flow for easier and more accurate reporting of farm metrics," said Christy Slay, TSC Director of Research and lead on the project. "By connecting data systems and creating easier and faster ways for producers to report their results, more of their time and effort can be spent on improving sustainability at the farm level.”

With Walmart’s grant investment, TSC is set to continue its work in improving the quality of agricultural sustainability data and the ease of reporting of that data by farmers. By improving systems to better understand the data collected on farms, the systems in place, and how to better communicate to suppliers about sustainability programs that require farm data, TSC hopes to lead efforts with members and partners to create a better flow of sustainability data, according to a press release. The intended end result, the Consortium says, is to inform business decision-making in the agricultural sector, thereby driving positive environmental, social, and economic impacts, as well as benefitting farmers in their reporting efforts.

TSC will produce three outputs over one year funded by Walmart's grant, including an agricultural datasystems landscape map, a data compatibility pilot to address gaps in data connectivity, and a farm data tool for use by farmers to create consistency and ease in reporting.

Walmart The Sustainability Consortium