Dianne Wolters wants to build connections.
As a farmer and food processor, she is in a unique position to show her food manufacturing customers the benefits of regenerative agriculture practices. Wolters wants to help these customers market their baked goods and consumer products as sustainably sourced, while also supporting fellow farmers in their sustainability efforts.
“The ability to articulate how regenerative ag practices are integrated into our food chain and the impact they have isn’t easy, but food companies want to tell their customers they are sourcing sustainable ingredients — and we are in a position to help them,” says Wolters, vice-president of product development for Everspring Farms.
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Described as a diversified agri-food company, Everspring Farms is a family-operated business with two divisions linked by a focus on sustainability.
The first is a vertically integrated poultry operation that specializes in waterfowl. Ducks and geese are raised on Ontario farms in Middlesex and Huron counties, processed at the family’s facility near Ilderton, Ont., and marketed to local wholesalers and restaurants.
The second arm of the business is a grain and seed processing division that began in 1985 when Wolters’ parents, Dale and Marianne Donaldson, started sprouting barley grass to supplement their poultry feed. Today, Everspring Farms operates two sprouting facilities in Seaforth, Ont., including one that is a dedicated gluten-free plant. They also mill, blend and package flour at their plants using 30 different grains and seeds.
Their grain operation serves a wide range of customers across North America that includes large multi-national food processors and commercial bakeries, and small, local food manufacturers who source niche grains and flours.
What makes Everspring Farms unique is that, as farmers and food processors themselves, they represent multiple pillars in the early stages of the food value chain.
“That means when food companies source from us, they are shortening the supply chain because we grow and mill the grains, and we raise and process the poultry,” explains Wolters. “We also source grain from local farmers, and have built relationships with the farmers, so we know what types of production practices they are using and feel comfortable talking to them about implementing regenerative practices where it makes sense.”
Wolters says many of their large customers, including global food companies, are having conversations at the boardroom level about how to make their businesses more sustainable. They are asking themselves how to source sustainable ingredients, how to tell their customers that the products they consume are produced sustainably and how to prove or validate that these sustainable practices are being followed.
“It’s just been the past three to four years that we’ve noticed our customers engaging in these conversations about sustainability and regenerative agriculture,” notes Wolters, explaining that some customers are approaching her family to learn more about how to source and validate sustainability.
This is where Wolters sees an opportunity to share information about on-farm sustainability practices, validate these efforts by measuring their impact on farms and the environment, and ultimately create conditions where everyone can benefit.
Working together
One of the greatest challenges of sustainable sourcing is that most food manufacturers don’t buy directly from farmers, so they don’t know much about how the ingredients are grown or raised, or what sustainability practices make sense to individual farmers.
The other challenge is measuring the impact of social efforts and the responsibility that farmers are shouldering. But Wolters has a plan for that.
Wolters is working with Merge Impact to determine her farm’s impact on the environment. By establishing baseline measurements (a project that began in 2024), the Illinois-based company collects data about variables that are affected by regenerative practices, including biodiversity, nutrient density, water and carbon to monitor their impact.
The data is compiled into a dashboard that can be shared with customers along the food value chain. This helps them understand what sustainability on the farm means and what difference the practices are making.
Wolters expects the dashboard will enhance the traceability of the grains they grow and how they contribute to a sustainable food supply chain. The dashboard will ultimately be used to demonstrate their on-farm efforts easily and verifiably to their food processing and manufacturing customers who can then use the information as validation for consumers.
The next step will be to present the dashboard to their food processing customers and find out what data is useful, or what’s missing, to help them share this information with consumers.
“Using this data metrics system, we can quantify many of the practices we already know are making a difference to enhance the sustainability of our farm and land,” says Wolters. “We are also using it to help us research the impact of trying new things on the farm, like what a perennial crop of switchgrass can do to improve soil health and resiliency.”
By measuring and demonstrating how regenerative practices are contributing to the sustainability of the environment and their farm, Wolters anticipates extending this data collection service to surrounding farms where they source grain. This way they can track regenerative investments farmers are already making and those that would make the most sense to implement and easily share the information with customers.
“We have no interest in convincing anyone to do anything,” say Wolters. “But, since most farmers are already following at least some regenerative practices, we want to help them pencil these practices into their planning systems, help them measure and validate what they are doing and find ways to provide them with financial incentives for their efforts.”
That’s where the data can really help. By providing validation and metrics about the impact of sustainable practices to their end-use customers, Everspring Farms hopes to pass on any available premiums to farmers who can verify they are following regenerative practices.
Wolters believes that data will help tell the story of how regenerative agricultural practices are creating sustainable, more resilient farms. And while she describes Everspring Farms as “small and in the middle of the value chain,” Wolters and her family are ready to leverage their nimble position to support both her farmer suppliers and food manufacturing customers to grow this new market opportunity.
“Agriculture has always been sustainable, but now we need to consider new practices to make our farms and food chain more resilient and be able to prove they are making a positive difference,” says Wolters.
Paying farmers for their sustainability efforts is a first step to balancing social responsibility throughout the food value chain. But, as Wolters points out, the goal of adopting more regenerative agriculture practices should also relate to risk management, the ability to adapt to climate change, producing more with fewer inputs, enhancing our environment and making sure farms are viable to pass to the next generation.
“We’re not a service provider, but by asking how we can serve to facilitate this movement towards sourcing sustainable ingredients, we can help to connect both ends of the supply chain,” says Wolters. “And when we work together, everyone wins.”
Enhancing the sustainability of Canadian farms
“Sustainability isn’t just about the environment, it’s also about production, economics and working together for the success of individual farmers and our industry as a whole,” says Curtis Grainger, FCC director of lending products and pricing.
Farm Credit Canada (FCC) launched the Sustainability Incentive Program in 2022 to support the agricultural industry and goals that individual sectors had established to enhance the sustainability and viability of Canadian farms.
Grainger explains that instead of FCC developing their own program, the organization chose to support and incentivize FCC customers who are participating in existing industry programs or following sector recommended practices. “Our goal is to collaborate to enable and empower our industry rather than create new criteria,” says Grainger.
A total of six incentive programs are available annually to eligible FCC customers who achieve criteria set out by their sector. These include the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (CRSB), Cargill RegenConnect, Dairy Farmers of Canada, Lactanet and Starbucks Canada, Ducks Unlimited Canada and PepsiCo, Fertilizer Canada’s Nutrient Stewardship Program – 4R, and the McCain Regenerative Agriculture Framework.
Each incentive program was created based on production practices that relate to sector-specific crops and livestock. Some of the agriculture industry programs also offer matching contributions from other sustainably minded companies who source from Canadian farmers, such as Starbucks and McCain.
Grainger believes these industry partnerships are helping to recognize the value of work being done on farms to create a more sustainable food production system for Canada.
So far, more than 600 farmers from across Canada have participated in FCC’s program. Grainger says their goal is to increase program uptake by 15 per cent each year and notes that the nearly 30 per cent increase in program participants year-over-year so far is a promising sign. In 2024, FCC paid out more than a million dollars in incentives to lending customers enrolled in their Sustainability Incentive Program.
Grainger says the feedback from industry and participants has been positive. He also notes the need for proper incentives to support and encourage farmers in their long- and short-term decision-making to make sustainability a viable component of their business operations.
Through FCC’s Sustainability Incentive Program, farmers can realize financial rewards today, along with the social and environmental benefits that will continue to pay off for decades.
For more information, visit the FCC website.
