Smithfield, Virginia-based Smithfield Foods, Inc. announced its partnership with Granular, a leading farm management software platform, to help grain growers with sustainability and efficiency while improving crop yields. The offer will be available to grain farmers in North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina and Virginia who sell their grain to Smithfield.
Granular Insights with Directed Scouting uses high-frequency, high-resolution satellite imagery to monitor fields, allowing farmers to mitigate in-field pests and resolve other yield-diminishing problems before they spread and require additional resources.
“With the data sets that drive profitability and optimize sustainability efforts at their fingertips, Smithfield growers will be able to take a holistic look at data from across their operation and combine it with satellite imagery and profit map overlays,” said Emma Fuller, PhD., director of sustainability science at Granular. “And when farmers know more, they are able to do more with less time, energy and resources.”
With more than 13 billion pounds of feed consumed by Smithfield’s animals each year, maximizing grain production efficiencies is a key way the company is working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent by 2025 throughout its entire supply chain. This offering complements Smithfield’s existing efforts to help farmers incorporate more efficient farming practices.
“Over the last several years, we’ve focused on working alongside grain farmers in our supply chain to provide information and advice about strategies to improve fertilizer usage and crop production,” said Stewart Leeth, VP of regulatory affairs and chief sustainability officer at Smithfield Foods. “With Granular Insights, we’ll be able to partner those recommendations with a technology-driven solution to help drive farm profitability with fewer environmental impacts.”
To learn more about Smithfield’s sustainability initiatives as well as its support for local farmers, click on the company’s 2019 Sustainability Impact Report here.
For more information about how Granular Insights with Directed Scouting can assist farmers, click here.
