The Minnesota-based cooperative had a great year for butter and cheese but saw overall revenue and profits fall Land O’Lakes churned up its dairy profits last year as big bets on cheese and America’s rediscovered love of butter fueled one of the segment’s best years on record reported $64 million in pre-tax profits for its dairy foods business Dairy case cheese offerings at grocery stores effective advertising and overall “favorable market conditions” boosted the business according to the Land O’Lakes annual report Land O’Lakes is the top-selling branded butter in the U.S The co-op, which touches half of America’s harvested acres through its crop inputs and animal nutrition businesses, has not been immune to the broader downturn in agriculture Profits for the WinField United crop inputs business declined 28% to $166 million last year The co-op blamed lower grain prices and retailers drawing down inventory for the decline farmers and agricultural businesses are navigating a complex landscape today,” Bill Pieper growth ambition isn’t always neatly ‘up and to the right.’ And growth is supported by strong enterprise performance Investments in data and technology led to more efficiency and product launches last year “We accelerated our ability to deliver data-driven innovation — products services and market insights,“ CEO Beth Ford and board Chair Rick Brand wrote in the co-op’s annual report The Purina animal nutrition business recovered from last year’s $3 million loss after launching a transformation that brought profits up to $34 million in 2024 Total profits for 2024 fell 6% to $238 million as revenue dropped 3% to $16.2 billion which we are proud to share with our member-owners,” Pieper wrote 514 ag producers and 873 ag retailers among its member-owners The cooperative returned $164 million in cash to its members last year a decline from the $179 million in patronage in 2023 Amid an escalating global trade war that threatens market access for farmers, Land O’Lakes intends to continue advocating for agriculture’s needs Ford is also chair of the Business Roundtable’s immigration committee this year. Brooks Johnson is a business reporter covering Minnesota’s food industry, agribusinesses and 3M. Business The Medtronic Spark program seeks to pull 1 million low-income students into health tech careers Barry earned a larger bonus than the previous year but reduced equity payouts lowered total compensation the trio serviced client relationships worth $4 billion in managed assets before their abrupt resignations last month ShareSaveCommentLeadershipCMO NetworkLand O’Lakes, Respecting The Past & Rooted In The FutureBySimon Mainwaring Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights Respecting the Past & Rooted in the Future …all focused on “farm to fork” technologies “I’ve worked on a lot of legacy brands in my career I walked into Land O’Lakes when we were 99 years old and coming into our 100th anniversary.” about 121 this year—so you might say she’s an expert in enduring companies London City University-educated executive is no stranger to leading through such milestones—and marketing throughout seminal times “One of the things I wanted to make very sure of is that we at Land O’Lakes pay homage to the past and respect what’s come before us,” she says It’s a very small percent of companies that actually get to the age that we are at It’s important to note that this story is about just one (but so far one the most successful) of Land O’Lakes campaigns culminating in the concept of “Rooted in Tomorrow.” Its phraseology and profound meaning came out of Malenshek’s nearly immediate quest to understand the culture of her new company from its people’s perspective “I worked with my team – a cross-functional group of people – to really get really clear on our brand purpose.” From its people’s perspective being the critical signifier because it’s essential to its past and future The idea of the exercise was to be able to “communicate that purpose out and get the whole team rallied around it .. We spent a lot of time,” recounts Malenshek “really uncovering some of these people’s stories and then developing our brand purpose that would get us into the next centennial …” we pulled [everyone together] and just started to talk about why we do what we do And what we do is put farmers and the retailers that support them at the heart of everything we’re about The team ultimately realized that “We’re all Rooted in Tomorrow ‘Rooted in Tomorrow’ helped people understand that what came before us really surrounds us as an organization but also includes a heavy focus on the future.” In fact the idea perfectly encapsulates the company’s position today at the confluence of yesterday and tomorrow “We do things better together than we do alone.” 40,000+ cooperatives serve up to one in four citizens Cooperatives are enterprises based on ethics promote the well-being of people and the environment and nurture a long-term vision for sustainable economic growth and social development “The cooperative piece for me was a big part of the reason that I joined Land O’Lakes,” Malenshek says “Our success starts with our members’ success and then also local ag retailer cooperatives And what it means is basically we are working on their behalf the money that we make actually goes back to our member-owners and ultimately into their communities.” “And that’s the critical part,” Malenshek argues “That we’re not here to just make massive amounts of profit This is actually about us supporting the farmers and allowing them to continue to do the work that they do every day A Culture of Firm Roots & Future Fruits Malenshek followed the “purpose-driven cooperative” ethos that rules the day at Land O’Lakes That meant “coming together and helping each other and learning from each other and supporting each other” in order to share the genesis of the messaging “The entire cooperative – including our members – rallied around the messaging of ‘Rooted in Tomorrow.’,” Malenshek recounts What comes first in marketing—the chicken (the messaging) or the egg (the mission) it’s been the quandary throughout her long career “Both the chicken and the egg are necessary stages of growth that’s what we have to do: We have to be able to drive growth The reason I always think of it as ‘profitable sustainable growth’ is because you can grow at the expense of some of those things I want to make sure that we’re doing it in a way that’s actually sustainable in terms of growth that’s going to continue over the years The impact of Land O’Lakes’ growth can be measured by the numbers: perhaps more central to its ethics and purpose Malenshek measures impact cooperatively: “We think about sustainability as the prosperity of our farmers and vibrancy of the rural communities that they serve.” As Land O’Lakes CEO, Beth Ford says – and as Malenshek states as a mantra: “Our success starts with our members’ success..” The company steadfastly refuses to “make massive profits if it’s at the expense of our members,” says Malenshek “It’s really about supporting them first and only then because obviously we’re running a business so we have to make money—but in service to them.” Malenshek’s early and ongoing “marketing” meetings have included “heart-warming time spent with our member owners and their families … You see the impact of the work that we do and the success they’re having in their business—and you learn a little bit more about how they’re doing it.” “These are super hardworking individuals and families that I respect so much You must have a tremendous amount of resilience and creativity and passion for what you do and you really have to have a love for the land.” this job for me is more of a calling than anything before,” says Malenshek all these things we’re doing—people need to know about this the next chapter of Land O’Lakes deeply rooted and future-facing story unfolds If you’d like to dive deeper with more purpose-led companies like Land O’Lakes, check out the Lead with We podcast here so that you too can build a company that transforms consumer behavior and our future A rumor that food company Land O'Lakes had announced a return to its previous logo featuring a kneeling Indigenous woman on its packaging circulated online in October 2024. A Facebook post alleged the company had said "'Our customers made it clear that they respect tradition more than wokeness.'"  One commenter on the post said, "When I see it then I will start to purchase their products!" Someone else who shared the alleged announcement added Now fire the advertising executives who approved that wokeness nonsense."  (America - Love It or Leave It Facebook page) Rather, the rumor originated with a post authored by the America - Love It or Leave It Facebook page. That Facebook page is part of a network of websites and social media pages that describes its output as being humorous and satirical in nature The parent site also posted the claim on its Facebook page with the message The bio sections of both Facebook pages read: "Nothing on this page is real."  Land O'Lakes removed the former logo in early 2020, saying in a Feb. 6, 2020, news release:  "As Land O'Lakes looks toward our 100th anniversary we've recognized we need packaging that reflects the foundation and heart of our company culture—and nothing does that better than our farmer-owners whose milk is used to produce Land O'Lakes' dairy products," said Beth Ford we strongly feel the need to better connect the men and women who grow our food with those who consume it," Ford said "Our farmer-to-fork structure gives us a unique ability to bridge this divide." In April 2020, CNN reported: the Minnesota-based dairy company has removed the Native American woman kneeling against a background of green pine trees and a blue lake from its products New products feature the lake and trees with the words "Land O Lakes The change was made in February and received little notice until this week universities and sports teams have begun to drop Native American images and symbols from logos For background, here is why we alert readers to rumors created by sources that call their output humorous or satirical "Land O'Lakes Removes Native American Woman From Its Products." The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/17/business/land-o-lakes-butter.html "Land O' Lakes Replaces Native American Woman Logo Touts Farmer-Owned Credentials Instead." CNN https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/17/us/landolakes-logo-change-trnd/index.html "Land O'Lakes Butter + Dairy Products Have New Packaging." Land O'Lakes https://www.landolakesinc.com/Press/News/new-butter-and-dairy-packaging "Land O'Lakes Drops the Iconic Logo of an Indigenous Woman From Its Branding." Smithsonian Magazine https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/mia-land-olakes-iconic-indigenous-woman-departs-packaging-mixed-reactions-180974760/ Joey Esposito has written for a variety of entertainment publications This material may not be reproduced without permission Snopes and the Snopes.com logo are registered service marks of Snopes.com Chief Technology Officer Teddy Bekele is leading a digital transformation at the Minnesota-based cooperative The chief technology officer at Land O’Lakes has a secret to making the cooperative its owners and its customers more digitally adept: the human touch A majority of Teddy Bekele’s calendar is purple — the color assigned to one-on-one meetings — as he spends his days vacuuming up knowledge and dispensing it in turn but all the way down to the entry level,” Bekele said ‘Tell me about the problem that you know you’re facing every day and how we can solve it.’ In the process Land O’Lakes appointed Bekele the company’s first tech executive in 2018 amid a growing need to connect agriculture with big data and insights it’s still in Bekele’s job description to “lead digital transformation” at the 103-year-old cooperative especially as artificial intelligence unites a common theme tech and ag share: optimization “For the amount of inputs you’re putting in you’re getting the maximum outputs,” he said “That’s the core of where our insights and AI come into play.” Bekele’s team of about 250, plus another 750 consultants and contractors, are dispersed throughout the cooperative’s business units: dairy foods, WinField United crop inputs, Purina animal feed and Truterra Some of those employees even report to other leaders “We’re going to help them get smart about data and analytics,” Bekele said “As a technology organization inside Land O’Lakes we’re only successful if Land O’Lakes businesses are successful and the business is only successful if the retailers and farmers are successful.” Excitement builds in Bekele’s voice as he talks about the power of generative AI to find highly specific answers about pesticides while out in the field or how it can help sales teams map out restaurants most likely to buy Land O’Lakes butter machine learning might become as revolutionary as the tractor itself if it delivers on the promise of offering trusted data-driven recommendations that lead to lasting benefits for farmers A Purdue report found as the global population rises, it could take a “miracle that dramatically shifts the annual rate of corn yield improvement” to feed everyone. “We’ve proven [corn yields] can push over 800 bushels per acre, yet the average is way below that” at around 180 bushels of corn per acre, said senior R&D manager Eric Spandl. “So how do we bring that up and be more efficient with the acres that we have?” Young stalks of corn sat in pots juxtaposed against a sterile laboratory backdrop at the WinField United Innovation Center in River Falls, Wis., on a recent Thursday. Phenotyping scientist Cody Hoerning was tracking how different fertilization rates perform using advanced imaging. “This center is the creation of the data,” Bekele said. “Can we now use artificial intelligence to make that available in real time so farmers and retailers can ask a question about something we’ve tried here?” That breakthrough has already happened with the company’s crop protection guide, an enormous book of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and additives. An AI chatbot tool in development can offer “real-time advice and recommendations,” said Dawn Wyse-Pester, director of innovation at WinField United. Though best known as a dairy brand, WinField is a major contributor to Land O’Lakes’ $17 billion in annual sales and typically brings in the biggest profit. The cooperative’s “farm-to-fork” approach means Land O’Lakes has a stake in growing and manufacturing the food for farmer-owners’ dairy herds in addition to processing billions of pounds of milk for its consumer brands. Bekele began at WinField building up the technology to sort and analyze the company’s massive trove of data to create recommendations for a specific crop in a specific plot of land at a specific time of year. “We had a lot of modeling that would help the agronomist make the right recommendation to that farm,” he said. “The goal became, ‘Can we replicate this model across the rest of Land O’Lakes?’” Bekele said digital efforts are already paying off for the company’s supply chain, which is crucial for quickly moving perishable dairy products to processors or grocery shelves. With all the holiday baking and feasting, the last two months of the year account for a huge slice of Land O’Lakes butter and cheese sales. “However, the cows milk 365 days of the year,” Bekele said. “We have predictive models in place to track where higher consumption may happen in one place versus another and where products need to go in the country.” All of these breakthroughs are important, but without a reliable high-speed internet connection, the arrival of AI in American fields won’t happen. Bekele chairs the Minnesota Broadband Task Force and says a big influx of federal dollars is coming to make the state more fully connected, which he said is a matter of “productivity and food sustainability and food resiliency.” “Ultimately, it’s about the health of those rural communities as well,” he said. A lot of Bekele’s attention targets cutting-edge innovations. But he also focuses on the bread-and-butter elements of IT and cybersecurity with a team he says knows a little about everything as well as contracted experts who can specialize. In any of those purple-coded calendar invites that signal a one-on-one meeting, Bekele says he aims to empower. “My job is more advisory and cheerleading at the end of the day,” he said, “and letting the business shine.” Retail took some uncomfortable risks in its 40-year history Winona High School is using hydroponic gardening techniques to grow and harvest about 50 pounds of lettuce a week the executive director of Naturally Minnesota wants to see local success breed success like it does in medtech Your access to this service has been limited If you think you have been blocked in error contact the owner of this site for assistance If you are a WordPress user with administrative privileges on this site please enter your email address in the box below and click "Send" You will then receive an email that helps you regain access Wordfence is a security plugin installed on over 5 million WordPress sites The owner of this site is using Wordfence to manage access to their site You can also read the documentation to learn about Wordfence's blocking tools or visit wordfence.com to learn more about Wordfence Click here to learn more: Documentation 6 May 2025 12:41:54 GMT.Your computer's time: document.write(new Date().toUTCString()); When a respected company with a century of history behind it upgrades its digital security posture the flexibility and breadth of Microsoft Security solutions answers the need to blend old solutions with new ones and realize the greatest possible advantages of a multicloud The company achieved more granular visibility with Microsoft Defender for Containers and Microsoft Sentinel Microsoft Security solutions work seamlessly with non-Microsoft solutions and point the way to continued ease and productivity “We were delighted with the introduction of Microsoft Defender for Containers Now we can scan everything inside a private AKS cluster This is the functionality we need to design a resilient For generations of people in the United States and Canada Land O’Lakes evokes the wholesome goodness of fresh butter Land O Lakes delivers a wide range of wholesome dairy products across 50 countries As an active member of the Microsoft Security Action Community the company contributes to the development of the solutions it depends on to protect its environment—a synergy as appealing as Land O Lakes butter melting into freshly baked bread Land O’Lakes shares similar data security concerns like every modern organization: ransomware, compromised identities, and how best to implement a Zero Trust strategy. The company’s cybersecurity team navigates these challenges in an environment that includes 9,000 employees, nearly 10,000 endpoints, a significant on-premises infrastructure, Google Cloud Platform and AWS clouds, in addition to its main cloud platform, Microsoft Azure Then there are the company’s existing applications that are awaiting modernization “Everything comes at a cost,” says Michael Marsh He needs to make the tradeoff between exciting new technologies and unspooling outdated applications “Technical debt is one of our biggest challenges It can take multiple years to move some of our older applications to a new platform.” The close relationship between Land O’Lakes and Microsoft grew out of the trust sparked by Azure DevOps services, especially Azure Pipelines (such as continuous integration and continuous delivery “We’ve had such a great working relationship with Microsoft that we adopted Azure in preview in 2016,” says Cory Durand Senior Enterprise Cloud Architect at Land O’Lakes “As more of our teams observed what we were doing with Azure more of them embraced it because of the ease the flow from Azure DevOps over the CI/CD pipeline brings to development We continue to build on that relationship with our constantly deepening experience with Microsoft solutions.” the Land O’Lakes–backed nonprofit dedicated to improving agricultural practices and bettering the lives of farmers in more than 80 countries “The biggest challenge with our Venture37 work is that a lot of those users bring their own devices or their company-owned devices don’t match our standard configuration,” explains Durand And Land O’Lakes employees across the United States often want to use their personal devices for company business when working from home further challenging the cybersecurity team’s efforts to protect systems and data Land O’Lakes takes a multipronged approach to device management, using Conditional Access policies in Azure Active Directory to restrict activity based on user type or the combination of the user type and the device. It monitors devices with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Regardless of whether those devices run Windows they’re covered by a monitoring solution that can detect and deflect attacks The connected nature of Microsoft Security solutions makes that protection easier than ever before flagging impossible travel (user couldn’t be where the IP signal indicates) “Signals from on-premises devices running Defender for Endpoint are passed to an Azure Log Analytics workspace combined with signals sent to Microsoft Sentinel,” says Marsh “All those signals from different aspects of usage His team turns to Microsoft Sentinel to lessen alert fatigue keeping team members focused on high priority threats that might otherwise blend in with the false positive instances That equates to better support for new hires providing the detailed visibility needed for maximum security The company is upgrading its response to threats for its cloud-native workloads enabling Defender for Cloud as its default solution It’s a cloud-native solution that now offers continuous monitoring of containers in AKS in cloud “Defender for Cloud is our first layer of defense,” says Durand Deploying to a test environment to verify the expected alert performance was the first step “With the continuous monitoring we achieve with Defender for Cloud we can identify a bad container and fix it before deploying it,” he explains “We define policies with Azure DevOps so that all the containers we deploy have been scanned and are clean We also use integrations like ServiceNow to make sure that our team can fix problems before deployment That proactive approach helps safeguard our AKS container environment.” But not every application can live in the cloud Land O’Lakes must safeguard a vast data plane: 4 AKS environments each with up to 6 nodes (a node is a collection of containers) that can autoscale to 15 (to ensure enough storage capacity on the data collected) Malicious hackers target containers because they’re rich data sources Land O’Lakes counters that threat against its most sensitive data by using private AKS clusters That measure heightens security but complicates visibility over containers because so many monitoring tools are geared to cloud use “We were delighted with the introduction of Microsoft Defender for Containers,” says Durand “Now we can scan everything inside a private AKS cluster which it uses to detect and analyze suspicious activity An environment that has developed over a century and contains multiple applications from multiple locales can’t help but employ solutions from several software companies Land O’Lakes uses an endpoint solution from another vendor as its primary endpoint threat blocker combining it with telemetry from Defender for Endpoint “Even though we’re using another primary endpoint monitoring tool Defender for Endpoint gave us the first indication that we were exposed by the Log4j vulnerability,” says Marsh “The Microsoft solution was more comprehensive than all the other tools we used Even when the Log4j vulnerability became well known Defender for Endpoint was picking up important signals that the other tools were still missing With its connectedness to the Microsoft environment Defender for Endpoint is an all-purpose device and application monitoring tool for Land O’Lakes “We use Defender for Endpoint for inventory,” adds Marsh “It picks up all the software on every endpoint We can also use it for threat hunting because it’s collecting comprehensive telemetry That can include accessing data in Azure Monitor or actively using Defender for Endpoint to search for threats on the Windows.com website through web content filtering There are so many benefits of using this tool.” Land O’Lakes uses the connected nature of its Microsoft Security solutions coupled with AI and machine learning to create a protective shield for its solutions that evolves with company’s needs and the threat landscape “The Microsoft tools we use are native to the platform,” summarizes Marsh “Microsoft combines a tremendous volume of telemetry from around the world which helps us understand where we need to direct our attention so that we can protect Land O’Lakes.” Find out more about Land O’Lakes, Inc. on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn is native to AKS—it examines the actual compute nodes and pulls all the relevant information There’s nothing extra to provision to get the enhanced security features we needed to monitor the environment and improve our alerts.” We are Microsoft Empowering others Our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more You are using an outdated browser. Upgrade your browser today or install Google Chrome Frame to better experience this site As the chief communications officer of one of the country’s largest farmer- and member-owned cooperatives with 9,000 employees in 50 states and 50 countries Olson is a master storyteller who leads with empathy and transparency Prior to joining Land O’Lakes 10 years ago Olson had successful stints at Minnesota State Colleges & University System Her multifaceted role at Land O’Lakes includes executive communication for well-regarded CEO Beth Ford A member of Ragan’s Communications Leadership Council and on the advisory board of PR Daily Olson is keen on the value of great writing among her team members And she’s not shy about her love for sports a handy skill for breaking the ice with stakeholders workplace culture and dispensed some advice for Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce DIANE: You’ve said you have found your home at Land O’Lakes – what makes this experience unique for you DIANE: What would you say are the 2-3 most important competencies for communicators on your team DIANE: what are some personal habits that work for you To all Wonder Women: If you’re looking to connect with other women leaders in communications, consider joining us for the next Ragan’s Business Summit & Retreat in September 2025: Details are here Topics: Leadership Communications I still practice communication principles I learned from her at Carlson Thanks for this great recognition for her career document.getElementById("comment").setAttribute( "id" "a2ea4282a08b5086cb6fd844e0216e4e" );document.getElementById("j6a5d70196").setAttribute( "id" PITCH US Sign up to receive the latest articles from Ragan.com directly in your inbox googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1527715465573-8'); });googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1527715465573-4'); }); Enter the email you used in your Ragan store purchase Not a member? 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Customer ReferencesLand O’Lakes navigates supply chain disruption with Oracle Fusion Cloud SCMThe spread of COVID-19 wreaked havoc on food supply chain systems but with the help of Oracle Fusion Cloud SCM Land O’Lakes was able to constantly adapt its logistics to meet changing supply and demand as it planned more than 650,000 shipments of 12.5 billion pounds of product With better data quality and access to the data the supply chain group can analyze it in different ways that we couldn’t do before Things are cleaner and better and we’re really looking forward to getting the constant upgrades and seeing how the tools evolve over time.” Land O’Lakes is one of the largest butter producers in the US and a major producer of cheese and other dairy ingredients Its supply chain is the backbone of its business so when the coronavirus started spreading in the US last spring it was all hands on deck for the farmer-owned co-op’s entire supply chain organization The co-op had suddenly lost some of its biggest channels with the closure of restaurants while demand in supermarkets exploded as far more people cooked for themselves Land O’Lakes also had worker shortages and facility shutdowns to deal with “It was like an Etch A Sketch every day: You come in and it’s just a blank slate once again,” says Dustin Braun senior director of logistics for Land O’Lakes “We saw more disruption in an eight-week period than we have experienced in eight years because it was both on the demand side and on the supply side with labor constraints.” Land O’Lakes had used the Oracle Transportation Management on-premises application for more than 10 years It was also using a combination of Access databases and SharePoint sites to manage its global trade To gain access to more cutting-edge technology and modern features and establish a supply chain platform that could meet its international growth plans, Land O’Lakes decided it was time to move to Oracle Fusion Cloud Supply Chain & Manufacturing (SCM) applications for logistics (transportation management and global trade management) It implemented the Oracle Cloud applications across all three of its business units—dairy That approach allowed it to consistently align its processes across all three units Immediately after its implementation of Oracle’s cloud-based transportation management application in March 2020 Land O’Lakes experienced peak-level demand at a time when it typically saves inventory for the holiday rush later in the year It was able to handle that spike with the help of the new Oracle Cloud applications The co-op was one of the only dairy manufacturers and distributors that didn’t have to dump milk during the pandemic due to supply chain issues Oracle Transportation Management was key to Land O’Lakes being able to meet unprecedented demand without missing a beat And while the pandemic has caused just as much disruption to Land O’Lakes’ business outside the US including a range of new and ever-changing regulations having a single system and a standardized process for global trade management made a huge difference as company decision-makers now have easier access to better-quality logistics data Land O’Lakes thinks that many of the lessons it learned during the pandemic will remain far after this crisis passes we matured our cross-functional and external partnerships We’ve made decisions faster,” Braun notes “Agility and responsiveness have been critical to our success We can’t go back to the way we’ve operated in the past.” Our spring 2025 issue focuses on innovation building a learning culture collaborating on climate initiatives The farm-to-fork cooperative uses artificial intelligence to improve agricultural yields You might have seen Land O’Lakes’ dairy products on store shelves without giving much thought to how they got there but that’s something CTO Teddy Bekele thinks about every day While the farmers and agricultural retailers of Land O’Lakes work to produce the cooperative’s products starting from the seeds used to grow animal feed Teddy Bekele is focused on supporting agriculture’s “fourth revolution” — one that’s embracing technologies like artificial intelligence Teddy explains how Land O’Lakes uses predictive analytics and AI to help farmers and other agricultural producers be more productive and make better decisions about the business of farming leading the organization’s digital transformation by leveraging existing and emerging technologies to discover Bekele served as vice president of ag technology for WinField United Bekele holds an MBA from Indiana University and a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from North Carolina State University His community leadership includes serving as chair of the Minnesota Broadband Task Force and the Federal Task Force on Precision Ag Connectivity If you’re enjoying the Me, Myself, and AI podcast, continue the conversation with us on LinkedIn. Join the AI for Leaders group today Read more about our show and follow along with the series at https://sloanreview.mit.edu/aipodcast Subscribe to Me, Myself, and AI on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts Give your feedback in this two-question survey Sam Ransbotham: You may have used the phrase “bet the farm,” but if you don’t work in agriculture you might not fully appreciate what that means find out how technology can support successful farm production Teddy Bekele: I’m Teddy Bekele from Land O’Lakes a podcast on artificial intelligence in business we introduce you to someone innovating with AI I’m also the AI and business strategy guest editor at MIT Sloan Management Review Shervin Khodabandeh: And I’m Shervin Khodabandeh and I colead BCG’s AI practice in North America MIT SMR and BCG have been researching and publishing on AI for six years interviewing hundreds of practitioners and surveying thousands of companies on what it takes to build and to deploy and scale AI capabilities and really transform the way organizations operate Sam Ransbotham: Shervin and I are talking today with Teddy Bekele Sam Ransbotham: I think we first met back in 2018, when you were at WinField United and we did a webinar together about data and analytics I’m the chief technology officer here at Land O’Lakes and it’s a farmer-owned cooperative — a farm-to-fork cooperative all the way from the time the seed goes into the ground and so that grain is then used to create feed formulations for animals those dairy producers are part of the cooperative We buy the milk from those producers and turn it into value-added products When we talk “farm to fork,” you truly cover the whole spectrum here in a very large way and my responsibility as a chief technology officer is obviously anything that runs the internal systems for our organization — enterprise uses for planning But another exciting area is the area of data and analytics as well as a lot of software that’s used actually in our business — working with our customers whether it’s supporting an existing business model or helping develop a new business model that then runs on the technology and really working with those business leaders to be able to define what that is and then working either with the internal resources or with external third parties to be able to develop some really neat solutions Shervin Khodabandeh: And the composition of the coop is what The coop is made up of two sides of the membership I mentioned a second ago — the dairy producers — and that is how the company got started dairy producers here in Minnesota got together and said “We want to get our product out East,” and so they created this cooperative to be able to handle more of an aggregation of all their products The other side of the membership are ag retailers These are independently operated businesses in rural communities and they serve row crop farmers — predominantly row crop farmers — in those communities we buy the large seed crop-protection products from large manufacturers and then they sell it to the farmers that they serve these ag retailers are also cooperatives themselves so their boards are made up of the farmers they serve Our board is made up of half of these dairy producers And that combination is the Land O’Lakes cooperative Teddy Bekele: We are here to serve the members and making sure that we make them competitive at the farm gates — whatever they need to do on a day-to-day basis to stay competitive [I think about] how do we keep up with the latest trends How do we make sure we apply those technology trends to the solutions we give them How do we make our supply chain more efficient and Shervin Khodabandeh: And technology’s been transforming the ag business Can you just give the 101 of that to our audience so they get a sense of how technology is really changing the agriculture and farming business Teddy Bekele: It’s one of the oldest industries in the world you’ve had some tremendous changes … starting with the tractor You did all this work; it could all be gone because of some pestilence that occurred on the field And so now there is a lot more research and a lot more technology that went into the seed that goes into the ground Could it still come out of the ground when it’s too wet and so we call it kind of the third revolution But this fourth-revolution agriculture is now the application of technology — and particularly software technology — to ag from simple things like being able to run descriptive analytics to the various components of artificial intelligence you’re starting to see all of this complex environment that really was managed with intuition and now your productivity goes up; now data and the technology is really helping you through this You’re more and more reliant on data coming off the field and then making decisions That really is the change in what’s happening in agriculture today Shervin Khodabandeh: And that data is really massive Teddy Bekele: There are so many things that happen we probably do a better job of predicting weather you need it down to a little 3 meter by 3 meter pixel and can you tell me exactly how much rain and when is it going to happen So you have all that variability that happens but imagine all the massive amounts of weather data you can capture that goes into figuring this out Then there’s a selection of the right type of seed And then we talked about applying nutrients and applying crop protection There’s 40 macro decisions that a farmer has to make on a field and all those could impact what happens at the end in a variety of ways with all the unpredictable climate changes and things that could happen along the way Shervin Khodabandeh: Really millions and billions of possibilities you used the words “aggregation” and “cooperative.” I like those words I actually use one of your examples in class every semester when we talk about data and strategic positioning Can you describe a bit about how this testing and experimentation works and we get into more of the work we’re doing in artificial intelligence But part of the role of our cooperative is how do we help that farmer be more productive on their field How do we provide them better intelligence because we’re sort of this aggregate entity “Let’s go work with all the manufacturers and get all their seed even in advance of when it’s commercially available.” We used to have about 200 applied research plots throughout the areas where we did business we would plant all these seeds and then apply on those acres in applied research plots we’ve replicated this enough times to where we can say ‘We know exactly how this will perform in this given climate type We are down to actually 115 sites now versus the 250 it was soil — which was no surprise — and topography was the other one and then that’s what we offer to our farmers but these are the best selections” — because we still make it the farmer’s decision at the end of the day — but “these are the best selections for the outputs you can expect at the end of the day.” One of the things that Sam and I have researched quite a lot is the success of an analytics or AI program is very highly proportional to the interactivity that it allows the user or the agent or the person in charge to do it and AI learns something and the human learns something That’s what we call organizational learning So how does this work in the farming industry You provide the insights and the decisions and the farmer agrees — fantastic — or says I want to override this.” Is there a feedback mechanism And there’s one other actor in this equation that’s really critical to all of this which is almost like the personal adviser when it comes to anything related to agronomy for that farmer those 180-some subdecisions those farmers have to make not only some of the things we talked about — soil all that — but there is equipment: when to buy this agronomist is the person that would present them [with] this information for us to be able to get validity as well as to make sure that what we’re proposing makes sense and is valuable Shervin Khodabandeh: And the power of the coop — it makes it even exponential because every experiment actually empowers the whole coop and I’m assuming a farmer in Minnesota isn’t really competitive with a farmer in Cleveland so the information sharing shouldn’t be an issue like it might be in retail or some other industry Sam Ransbotham: So with all these data and artificial intelligence somehow you’ve gone in this fourth revolution or fourth … I can’t remember what you called it Teddy Bekele: With some of the capabilities both the biotechnology as well as the software technology component of it there’s farmers that can get up to 540 bushels per acre And so some of it is now getting into this practice and is capturing data on the field all the time Some of it is just changing a lot of legacy practices So particularly here in the Northern Plains one of the things is that people apply all the fertilization in the winter And then you have all that … when it melts and now you have the moisture to be able to grow the crop all that was applied in the fall: Right after you harvest the first thing you do after you harvest is then get into tilling — or maybe maybe not — and then you do the fertilization right before the crop goes into the ground But that creates some logistical challenges because now you have to be in the field at a given time and there’s a scheduling aspect: Who’s going to do it but those are the things that folks are learning now and making some of those adjustments you provide these recommendations on average and then people adjust them or it’s not even that they consciously maybe reject your suggestion but they implement it slightly differently when I started working here nine years ago “Do you want to bet the farm on it?” people bet the farm all the investments you make in all the crops as well as the equipment you could totally be upside down and not be there two years later So there’s just always this risk aspect of it [farmers are] very entrepreneurial in nature So they want to be able to be empowered to make their own decision and have their own flavor to it make sure you use the data to be able to help you with that where you put your foot on the gas a little bit harder and you want to be able to balance that out Sam Ransbotham: And at least this lets them know if they’re pressing the gas or if they’re backing off ‘This is a more conservative position.’” Before they were just guessing where they were on that continuum and now you’re at least letting them know that And one of the things I always tell them is It’s your intelligence; it’s augmented with data and some of the models we put together and you’re not just there now reacting to what the model’s telling you.” we have a segment where we ask you a series of rapid-fire questions so just answer with the first thing that comes to your mind Teddy Bekele: Proudest moment in AI … I would say we were using this computer vision to be able to take a look at cows in the field and could we or just about right amount of weight.” I remember when that came to life I was ecstatic when I when I saw the output of that model Teddy Bekele: What worries me about AI is unintended consequences and you have the best intentions in the world of reaching a certain answer but in the background … because we don’t understand what happened behind the scenes — because the machine was learning and then it learned something else — and all of a sudden we can’t get to understanding why we got to that answer But we keep going forward because it’s truly too embedded into what we’re doing to be able to go analyze that The unintended consequence of something is truly something that I worry about every day Sam Ransbotham: What’s your favorite activity that involves no technology Teddy Bekele: Favorite activity that involves no technology is trying to teach my kids how to write code … but I’m trying to do it in such a way that I use no tech and they can have fun trying to think through the mental process to be able to do it and then say Sam Ransbotham: What was the first career you wanted Teddy Bekele: I was 7 years old when I … and by the way I just realized I didn’t quite want to be a mechanical engineer a year after I graduated I had the same thing with chemical engineering I didn’t want to do that once I graduated with it What’s your greatest wish for AI in the future Teddy Bekele: My greatest wish for AI in the future is truly continuing the work we’re doing now; it’s to provide help with really identifying I want to make a decision — as an individual but I want to be able to have everything at my fingertips so I can make the most optimal decision So can you get me to that spot where all the information is de-codified as much as possible so I can get to the best possible answer And so I would love to take that out of the way and really get to a spot where I don’t have to worry about the guesswork aspect of it; now I can make the most optimal decision head of Novo Nordisk’s AI center of excellence and AI is a collaborative podcast from MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group and is hosted by Sam Ransbotham and Shervin Khodabandeh and the coordinating producers are Allison Ryder and Sophie Rüdinger You must sign in to post a comment.First time here? Sign up for a free account: Comment on articles and get access to many more articles Land O’Lakes is one of the largest farmer-owned cooperatives and touches half the harvested acres in the United States  Farmers are integral to all its businesses including WinField United crop inputs and insights  Land O’Lakes turned to Azure Data Manager for Agriculture to provide growers with data-driven insights that make them more efficient “Our job is to bring all the information together to make sense of it Azure Data Manager for Agriculture is helping us do that.” but the livelihood of farmers who grow our nation’s food depends on their ability to make important decisions rain or shine Land O’Lakes saw a critical need to help the thousands of growers in its member-owned cooperative chart the unknown “There are curveballs thrown at our farmers every single year,” says Teddy Bekele “Climate conditions that are changing every day crop prices that are moving consistently and with a lot of volatility as well as consumer demands changing on a regular basis.” the sustainability division of Land O’Lakes adds our farmers are dealing with fluctuations in the price of inputs like seed or crop protection.” With so many variables threatening farmers’ bottom line Land O’Lakes wanted to support farmers with relevant data that could help them make more informed decisions in the field and adopt sustainable practices that benefit the environment and farm operations for the long-term the company looked to Microsoft for a solution Bekele says there is a lot of data to draw from on every farm The company can capture live information across factors such as crop yield and seed placement along with conditions that change daily like temperature but it’s all disparate data sets,” says Bekele.” Our job is to bring all the information together to make sense of it By combining a massive amount of previously siloed data into a central platform and eliminating manual processes, Azure Data Manager for Agriculture reduces time spent on data integrations thereby cutting down engineering effort and costs Engineering teams were previously separated and focused only on their specific applications ‘Can you build this?’ There were a lot of redundancies,” says Benoit Mourot IT Director of Product Management at Land O’Lakes “We looked for a tool that would help us centralize those segregated applications Land O’Lakes data scientists are now able to derive better insights through comprehensive analytics and intelligent modeling “Our data science teams were spending way too much time just getting the data structured appropriately so they could then do the modeling Azure Data Manager has “driven a ton of efficiency Land O’Lakes IT teams were able to pull in data from a weather station in moments thanks to built-in connectors Building that integration from the ground up would have taken at least a month and required ongoing maintenance farmers had to stitch together data stored on computers Today farmers have access to real-time data and automated alerts provided directly by Land O’Lakes via its proprietary tools Truterra and Winfield United Digital Agronomy platform along with agronomic recommendations that allow farmers to know the best time and location to plant a crop given the forecast this is probably the best route to take that can get you to more environmentally sound decisions and overall better efficiency in your operations,’” says Bekele Since implementing Azure Data Manager for Agriculture Land O’Lakes participating farmers have increased their productivity by up to 30 percent Access to a greater quantity of quality data coupled with broad adoption of informed farming methods provides more transparency consumers will be able to see in more detail the company’s farm-to-fork sustainable practices “Consumers go to the store and buy products like Land O’Lakes butter and cheese How was my food managed?’ We have the ability to bring more transparency to that so people can make well-educated decisions about their food,” Bekele says access to information about where food comes from and environmental stewardship is also important to consumers—but no more important than it is to farmers “Farmers themselves are very pro-sustainability They want to do the right thing for the land because it is generationally handed over within families,” says Chakra Sankaraiah Senior Director of Digital and Innovation at Land O’Lakes “They want to make sure they leave the land in a much better shape than when they got it.” With Azure Data Manager farmers get the specific data they need to ensure sustainable agricultural practices that protect the environment and sustain healthy productivity over time—helping Land O’Lakes leave the land in good condition for generations to come the company also plans to adopt Microsoft Sustainability Manager to gain continuous visibility into emissions activities and water data there is tremendous potential for how we can co-innovate and co-build,” Sankaraiah says “There is a great opportunity for these two organizations to collaborate more deeply and really transform the agriculture industry and the food supply chain.” Find out more about Land O’Lakes on Facebook and LinkedIn there is tremendous potential for how we can co-innovate and co-build There is a great opportunity for these two organizations to collaborate more deeply and really transform the agriculture industry and the food supply chain.” Land O’Lakes Director of Communications Abbey Shilling shares how the comms team stood up this industry-first effort When new and hip trends in employee experience surface they aren’t always embraced by billion-dollar the 103-year-old ag co-op decided to implement a flexible work program for its manufacturing employees This effort required an integrated and coordinated communications strategy led by a team that understood how to do it This past summer at Ragan’s Employee Experience Conference LOL Director of Communications Abbey Shilling shared how the comms team led the efforts that got this program off the ground Researching industry challenges from within The LOL communications team understood from the outset that it played a pivotal role in shaping a complex narrative that would resonate internally and externally Doing this required activating the right internal partners “The creation of flex hours in manufacturing originated from our talented supply chain team and the communications team identified it as a standout story amidst the prevailing media discussions on remote work as well as labor challenges,” explained Shilling “Recognizing the unique nature of implementing such a program within manufacturing we swiftly moved to highlight its significance and find the right voices Nurturing strong internal relationships across the org The culture of fostering and maintaining strong internal relationships helped LOL immediately identify who those right voices were Shilling cited effective communication across departments as a crucial means of ensuring the storytelling around flex work was successful “We ensured close coordination with several key internal stakeholders including human resources’ talent marketing and recruiting teams to align on messaging about the program’s benefits to attract and retain talent,” she said “We also engaged with supply chain and manufacturing facility teams to ensure buy-in and include perspectives from frontline staff our creative studio visually represented the program through photography and other creative assets.” “That alignment also fostered a nurturing environment for employees to open up,” Shilling said feel empowered and comfortable sharing their experiences openly and authentically.” Robust data from their HR team pointed to the growing demand for flexible work options among manufacturing employees and providing tangible evidence of success we effectively positioned our company as a leader in fostering innovative workplace practices,” explained Shilling Coverage drives recognition and additional internal touchpoints the atmosphere among LOL employees has been incredibly energized and positive “The manufacturing and supply chain teams are particularly enthusiastic seeing the program’s recognition as a validation of their innovative approach to workplace flexibility,” Shilling said The feature and related assets have also been used in other ways “This collaborative effort has transformed our narrative from an internal success story to a recognized industry benchmark,” Shilling said “generating momentum and inspiring others to explore similar initiatives in their manufacturing operations.” Check out Shilling’s full  presentation here: Shilling is a member of Ragan’s Communications Leadership Council. Learn more about joining here. Topics: Employer Branding, PR "af0a7d1038f902ff610b0ea0a3860d7e" );document.getElementById("j6a5d70196").setAttribute( "id" offered stark wisdom: Don’t follow me into farming He earned a mechanical engineering degree at North Carolina State University as chief technology officer at Land O’Lakes he is investing that knowledge into the world he once left behind leading the creation of new technologies to make farmers more profitable productive and environmentally sustainable Wednesday, Land O’Lakes and Microsoft announced a multi-year strategic alliance to pioneer agricultural innovations expand sustainability practices for farmers and the food system That vision meshes with the 99-year mission at Land O’Lakes The company, based in Minnesota, is a farmer-owned cooperative with a network spanning more than 300,000 producers and touching about half of America’s harvested areas digital solutions built on Microsoft Azure and its artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities will help farmers better react to current and future challenges that impact their bottom lines Transform recently spoke with Bekele to hear more about his work to fortify American farmers – and honor his father’s legacy TRANSFORM: What is it like for you to blend your family’s agricultural history with your own tech expertise to help today’s farmers thrive I started to see the impact tech could have on farming how it could revolutionize this business and bring more stability during uncertain times Weather dictates 70 percent of what’s going to happen on a farm Weather is still something we can’t predict accurately at the hyper-local level But what if farmers could prepare themselves for these risks and react to them with data and insights I looked at what technology could do to protect the decisions farmers were making yet he relied on his intuition to raise crops – as generations of farmers have done the cloud and AI to make crucial decisions on planting BEKELE: Farmers in general like taking risks That’s because every year is different and unpredictable What you did last year won’t work out the same way this year The challenges you face are going to be different So more of them would love to rely on the technology to make decisions and use data to be able to improve themselves from one year to the next TRANSFORM: By harnessing Azure how will Land O’Lakes help farmers – and their fields – become more productive we’ve done research plots across the farming areas we serve We planted different seed varieties and crop-protection applications put in different farming practices then collected data on those plots to provide insights to farmers – like the right crop variety for the type of soil Azure brings machine learning and artificial intelligence to the brute force that we applied in the fields algorithms and replicated trials to derive the insights The plots can then be used to validate our models and findings TRANSFORM: How do you envision farmers in the Land O’Lakes cooperative using AI recommendations to specifically react to what their fields are telling them BEKELE: It starts when you create the plan for the fields you will manage this year What’s the best prescription for each field can you get early detection of where diseases might be occurring If you give the fields nutrients like nitrogen or potassium What’s the right balance between what you put into the ground versus how many bushels per acre you will harvest those calculations happen in a farmer’s head an optimized algorithm says: This is how much money you should spend today for the outcome you are seeking TRANSFORM: Can you describe one way that the alliance with Microsoft will help improve sustainability on American farms farmers put nutrients down in the fall to prep the fields they’ll plant in the spring But what if you know – throughout the growing season – exactly what and how to feed the crop That makes that field perform better now and in the future And you can do it in an environmentally sound way for example by avoiding nutrients leaching out of the field into waterways when it rains Any nutrient you put into the ground should stay in the ground – and then in the plant to make it healthier and more productive TRANSFORM: Land O’Lakes and Microsoft are working together to deliver AI solutions that will help farmers’ profit potential What would that mean for one farm now on the financial edge the technology gets you to a spot where farming is exciting – you become a profitable farm And you would not have to add more acres or put yourself at greater risk to get there It just means you’re making better-optimized decisions with the technology For the smaller farmer who is facing a drop in commodity prices An improvement of 10 to 30 percent means they are no longer losing money TRANSFORM: Could such an increase in profitability lead farmers to experiment with new techniques or new crops that improve the overall food supply BEKELE: If you’re questioning whether you will make it financially you’re less willing to try different farming practices or change your nutrient recipe or try another crop Maybe a farmer who has been growing corn and soybeans for years should be looking at lentils or peas you’re not going to try something that might lose you money That reduces innovation and the diversity of crops But if we can get folks into a position where they can try things which betters their business and betters everybody else TRANSFORM: How would these innovations have changed your dad’s life as a farmer – and maybe your own life BEKELE: If my dad had access to this technology He was on the bleeding edge when it came to emerging technologies If I had seen the transformation they were bringing I might have stuck to a career in agriculture Or maybe I would have pursued computer science with a focus on agriculture That would have been an interesting path – although I guess I still landed in basically the same spot 25 years later Top photo: A farm in Wisconsin that is part of the Land O’Lakes cooperative (All photos courtesy of Land O’Lakes.)“ on Wednesday announced a multiyear strategic alliance to pioneer new innovations in agriculture and enhance the supply chain As one of the nation’s largest farmer-owned cooperatives with 150 million acres of productive cropland in its network Land O’Lakes is deeply connected to rural America and has a unique understanding of farmers’ needs and the communities where they and their families live and work Combined with Microsoft’s trusted cloud technologies and AI capabilities the companies will deliver solutions that help farmers’ profit potential and adoption of sustainable agricultural practices farms contribute more than $130 billion to the economy emphasizing the critical role farmers play in our nation’s food supply Yet the industry faces challenges that threaten its viability the industry is increasingly facing production and supply-chain issues and many farmers are facing new economic challenges for their family-owned businesses “Land O’Lakes is one of  the most important food suppliers in the U.S. and our nation’s farmers and consumers rely on its ability to rapidly adapt to changing market forces through innovation,” said Satya Nadella we will apply the power of Azure and its AI capabilities to help Land O’Lakes solve some of the most pressing challenges facing the industry and bridge the divide between rural and urban communities.” “As America’s farmers continue to deliver the world’s safest they face an increasing number of obstacles that are beyond their control precision agriculture tools that we are building with Microsoft will provide the edge they need but unreliable or nonexistent high-speed internet in rural areas keeps these tools out of reach for many we will work to address this need and help farmers remain profitable and sustainable,” said Beth Ford the companies will focus on developing a connected AgTech platform that will bring together Land O’Lakes’ portfolio of innovative AgTech tools Data Silo and Truterra™ Insights Engine under one unified architecture By standardizing on Azure and harnessing the power of Azure FarmBeats Land O’Lakes will be able to derive insights that enable intelligent agriculture solutions for farmers to be more productive with their time and resources This includes early mitigation of plant stress to guide precisely where and when farmers should take action on their field for ideal growth conditions maximization of yield potential by planting the right seed varieties and nutrients and ensuring accurate output ratio to meet demand properly all while lowering the farm carbon footprint the companies will collaborate to advance an aggregator of data with Data Silo as well as leverage Microsoft Azure and its AI capabilities and insights from WinField United Answer Plot® test fields to support more predictable decisions for placement of crop inputs such as seeds and treatments with the goal of increasing return on investment with the entire acre The companies will create a Digital Dairy solution harnessing the power of edge computing to capture data from farms with poor internet coverage and the power of AI to provide data-driven insights for dairy producers This initiative will bring together multiple data streams — including weather feed management and animal health — from sensors and third-party applications to help dairy producers improve profit potential adopt conservation practices and reduce waste by feeding livestock only what they need and ensuring milk supply doesn’t go bad in the supply chain the companies will enable Traceability throughout the Land O’Lakes supply chain ensuring consumer confidence that foods are of the highest quality and sustainably sourced At a time when the dairy industry is stressed with changing customer demand and supply-chain disruptions these digital tools will help producers improve efficiencies and profit potential while helping to ensure food gets to the people who need it most more extreme weather and a growing world population Land O’Lakes and Microsoft share a commitment to sustainability and natural resources stewardship to help farm fields be both more resilient and productive for generations to come We can help farmers improve the health and function of their farms’ soils to both produce more food and store greenhouse gas The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that agricultural soils could hold up to 10% of human-caused emissions within 25 years soils are largely absent from global carbon markets farmers lack adequate information and incentives to practice regenerative agriculture to capture and store carbon The companies are working together to change that by developing a technology suite to help farmers improve their profit potential and generate new revenue in carbon markets The new alliance will develop capabilities to quickly and effectively predict the carbon benefits of regenerative practices like no-till precision nutrient management and planting of cover crops Combining such capabilities with the real-time transparency from remote sensing and satellite data will make certification of these projects in global carbon markets easier quicker and less expensive — ultimately maximizing the economic value for farmers The companies will explore integrating these new capabilities into the Truterra™ Insights Engine to create a unique soil health platform that can help farmers identify new opportunities to adopt practices to improve the quality and function of their farms’ soils estimate the natural resource and economic benefits of those new practices and connect to soil carbon markets that sell certified credits to buyers The platform would help unlock the potential of hundreds of millions of acres of farmland to be an effective carbon removal system and improve soil health and productivity while providing farmers with the insights they need to make the best decisions for their farms Markets like these may help Microsoft reach its goal to be carbon negative by 2030 and remove more carbon from the atmosphere than it emitted since its founding by 2050 and help other businesses take advantage of soil carbon credits and the market to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions The companies are launching pilots that will lead to long-term programmatic solutions in rural communities Combining Microsoft’s Airband program and specific locations within the Land O’Lakes owner network broadband will be deployed to rural communities along with services including telehealth educational resources and digital skilling Both companies are also advocating for policy changes to accelerate the availability of broadband in rural communities including broadband mapping to fully understand who has and does not have access to broadband and federal funding in upcoming legislation the COVID-19 pandemic makes the digital divide even worse for many people education and healthcare are out of reach for people living in rural communities without online access The companies are answering this immediate need for connectivity by working together to turn on free public Wi-Fi at more than 150+ locations in 19 states using a mix of technologies and supplying internet service providers with the necessary hardware Land O’Lakes to transition its IT platforms to Microsoft Microsoft becomes Land O’Lakes’ strategic cloud provider and Land O’Lakes will migrate the majority of the company’s IT infrastructure onto Microsoft Azure The company has enabled Microsoft 365 and Teams for its workforce empowering them with next-generation digital experience technology for increased productivity internal collaboration and customer engagement one of America’s premier agribusiness and food companies is a member-owned cooperative with industry-leading operations that span the spectrum from agricultural production to consumer foods Land O’Lakes is one of the nation’s largest cooperatives Building on a legacy of more than 99 years of operation Land O’Lakes today operates some of the most respected brands and businesses in agriculture and food production including Land O’Lakes Dairy Foods The company does business in all 50 states and more than 60 countries corporate headquarters are located in Arden Hills Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more Microsoft Media Relations, WE Communications for Microsoft, (425) 638-7777, [email protected] Land O’Lakes Media Relations, Brooke Dillon, (651) 202-1670, [email protected] If you are the site owner (or you manage this site), please whitelist your IP or if you think this block is an error please open a support ticket and make sure to include the block details (displayed in the box below) so we can assist you in troubleshooting the issue is pushing more farmers to adopt regenerative practices by working to take away the fear of lost profitability and productivity of their land Regenerative practices include everything from cover crops to conservation tillage to nutrient management the director of retailer and farmer services at Truterra says it’s prepared to help alleviate the risk of switching to more climate-smart practices that improve soil health The cooperative describes itself as one of America’s premier agribusiness and food companies It operates some of the industry’s most influential brands in the United States The company does business in 50 states and more than 60 countries Murphy said farmers are on the front lines of changes in weather They see more flooding and dry spells and the changing climate is making it harder to do business “Land O’Lakes has been working for years with our farmers to implement climate-smart agriculture practices that we know can keep farm businesses resilient and profitable for the long term,” Murphy said LAND O’LAKES LOGO: Image: Land O’Lakes Inc The agriculture sector is in a unique position to be a carbon sink or a source for negative emissions in a way that no other sector can Land O’ Lakes is working to develop win-win solutions that reward farmers for their stewardship and make it economically feasible for farmers to adopt regenerative practices “We are shifting the priority and focus away from maximizing yields from every acre towards deriving overall maximum profitability for the farm,” Murphy said “So that the value from each acre is defined not only by how much it produces – the crop a farmer can sell the price per bushel they receive – but also by factoring into that profitability metrics such as soil health For farmers who are interested in participating in the program, there are a few steps to follow, according to a press release from the company They can ask about the Truterra market access program at their local agricultural retailer Farmers may receive a $2-per-acre incentive to participate in ecosystem markets and learn more about future carbon market opportunities Farmers can also participate in the WinField United Advanced Acre Rx prescription plan which will provide a warranty to take away part of the risk of this change Eligibility for the Truterra carbon program can pay up to $25 per ton of sequestered CO2 The overall goal of the program is to help farmers improve soil health and become eligible for future market opportunities due to continuous cover and/or tillage changes We're a project of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at Michigan State University. More Catch of the Day By David Strayer If you’ve driven Michigan’s highways lately you’ve probably seen the billboards: a big picture of a lanternfly The spotted lanternfly is a serious pest that is poised to cause […] More Photo Friday Power is supplied to the electric motor very quickly which gives the electric bus high performance and rapid acceleration More podcasts By Sammy Schuck Most people may know that festivals attract people to Michigan communities What most may not know is that festivals and events in the state are an annual $1 billion industry according to Michigan Festivals and Events Association CEO Mike Szukhent the lack of winter festivals last year “hit hard.” […] More COVID-19 stories Built with the Largo WordPress Theme from the Institute for Nonprofit News An official website of the United States government JavaScript appears to be disabled on this computer. Please click here to see any active alerts 2023 - The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and The Hershey Company (Hershey) announced today the joint commitment of $2 million to support local dairy farmers The Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay (Alliance) will use funds to promote the adoption of practices that support local and regional environmental goals with dairy farmers in Land O’Lakes’ eastern region milk shed.  The Alliance, Hershey, and Land O’Lakes have been working together since 2021 on an initiative called “Sustainable Dairy PA.” The initiative takes a collaborative and public sector-supported approach to accelerate on-farm conservation efforts for local eastern region dairy farmers The $2 million in funding is part of a commitment between the EPA and Hershey $1 million of which will be funded by the EPA and a matching $1 million of which will be committed from Hershey will be used to support the Alliance and Land O’Lakes in implementing agricultural conservation practices on Land O’Lakes member dairy farms The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) will administer the portion of the funds provided from EPA to the Alliance “Dairy farmers are critical to our supply chain and our local communities,” said Leigh Horner “We are proud to support the work of Sustainable Dairy PA and the farmers participating as they drive meaningful impact on clean water and conservation efforts to protect the Chesapeake Bay.” EPA understands the need to support corporate initiatives like these The Alliance has been developing agriculture supply chain programs since 2018 leveraging approximately $16M in public and private funding to assist over 150 farmers Dairy farming is an essential component of the economy and a source of wholesome local food Supporting farmers with funding and expertise to help them improve water quality and reduce the environmental impacts of dairy farms is essential These practices also help improve the long-term sustainability of the farms with the goal of improving soil health and the overall efficiency of the operations and the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay brings $2 million of much-needed support to Pennsylvania dairy farmers to scale up conservation practices that are good for our farms and the Bay." said EPA Regional Administrator Adam Ortiz we are not only investing in the current environment but into the long-term viability of Pennsylvania farmers - our frontline environmentalists." the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) the Alliance has created a model that local companies are now adopting in an effort to increase sustainability in their dairy supply chain and help bring cleaner water back to their communities “American farmers continually rise to the challenge of feeding a growing global population in an increasingly sustainable and efficient manner,” said Tim Leviny Land O’Lakes Senior Vice President of Global Dairy Ingredients & International “Collaborative initiatives like Sustainable Dairy PA provide the necessary incentives to drive voluntary practice changes that not only help contribute to the health of the planet but also help better position farmers for success in a challenging operating environment.” and largely enabled by their ag sustainability businesses Truterra Land O’Lakes has taken a leadership position in on-farm sustainability by helping customers achieve their environmental goals while keeping farmer profitability at the forefront The collaboration at the heart of this work brings significant funding and incentives to help farmers prioritize conservation while navigating difficult dairy market conditions and Land O’Lakes’ leadership to support our Pennsylvania dairy farmers and local ecosystems is revolutionary.” said Jenna Mitchell Beckett Agriculture Program Director at the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay “This effort is helping to create a paradigm shift in which an entire supply chain works together to support work on the ground rather than farmers being expected to carry the load alone We believe this model is the future of how we will overcome the environmental hurdles we face The dairy brand is reshaping its signature product to help at-home bakers and Hamdi Ulukaya’s Unstuck initiative launches co-branded products with ingredients sourced by refugees Leftovers is our look at a few of the product ideas popping up everywhere some sound amazing and some are the kinds of ideas we would never dream of We can’t write about everything that we get pitched so here are some leftovers pulled from our inboxes.​​​​​​ Consumers have grown accustomed to buying butter in traditional rectangular blocks but Land O’Lakes is looking to cut corners with its latest offering The agribusiness and food company is debuting butter balls in pre-portioned sizes designed to make cooking easier The half-tablespoon-sized balls come packaged in a resealable half-pound bag and will be sold at retailers in the Midwest said its innovation team has been looking for solutions for the millions of Americans who spent more time cooking at home during the COVID-19 pandemic The member-owned cooperative observed that with nearly 75% of U.S consumers wanting to continue making meals many people were eager for a simpler way of doing things “We see this product as the answer to the convenience consumers crave while staying true to the great product they rely on — sweet cream butter," Heather Anfang vice president of Land O'Lakes Dairy Foods "While the pandemic created unprecedented challenges across all industries … we chose to lean in and are excited to bring this unique product to consumers this summer." Once out of favor with consumers because of its unhealthy reputation butter was growing in popularity before the pandemic People making everything from cakes and cookies to rolls and crusts were attracted to its simple ingredient list and clean label association Demand is only expected to accelerate. The global butter market is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate from $37 billion last year to just over $49 billion by 2028, according to data from Fortune Business Insights. Similar to other foods, butter prices have surged during the last year, rising nearly 16%, according to the U.S. government. Milk has been hit particularly hard amid an increase in demand and higher costs of buying cattle As dairy prices climb global dairy producer and processor Saputo is not having a cow its new Vitalite plant-based cheese line has no dairy at all Vitalite — which comes in mozzarella and cheddar slices and shreds grated parmesan and spreadable cream cheese varieties — was designed to deliver a taste and melt similar to its dairy counterparts “As demand for vegan cheese continues to grow, many consumers have been vocal about how difficult it has been to find a plant-based cheese that lives up to their expectations,” David Cherrie, Saputo Dairy USA vice president for marketing and innovation, said in a press release we are experts at making cheese people love and crave Where other plant-based cheeses fall short we saw an opportunity to use our expertise in the cheese category to create a delicious plant-based alternative.”   which is one of the world’s largest dairy companies definitely has traditional cheesemaking expertise Saputo has been laying the groundwork for this launch for a while. Last year, it acquired Bute Island Foods a U.K.-based plant-based cheese company that makes the British Sheese brand Saputo CEO and Board Chair Lino Saputo said that the Bute Island deal helps the dairy company in “putting innovation at the forefront of our priorities.” which has coconut oil and potato and grain starches as its main ingredients benefits not only from Saputo’s cheesemaking expertise More traditional cheese players getting into the space not only means those cheeses are more likely to be like their dairy counterparts but also that there will be more plant-based options on grocery shelves And considering that Saputo has seen its dairy business costs soar due to inflationary and supply chain pressures a plant-based line may help the company’s bottom line — and be attractive to value-seeking consumers Consumers can now buy their favorite food items while also helping to provide a job to refugee workers who source the ingredients Unstuck, a new initiative by the Tent Partnership founded by Chobani CEO Hamdi Ulukaya, announced its first co-branded products in partnership with several food brands It is the first consumer-facing initiative for the organization which is dedicated to creating job opportunities for refugees across the globe These products include Chobani Vanilla Greek Yogurt with Tropical Fruit on the Bottom Petit Pot Dark Chocolate Organic French Dessert Pitaya Foods Natural Passion Fruit and Organic Avocado smoothie mixes and That’s It Mango Probiotic Fruit Bars The organization said its overall goal is to find safe legal and fair jobs for refugees at food sourcing facilities in countries Unstuck says of the more than 36 million refugees worldwide many of whom escaped countries devastated by war The organization said in its press release it is currently exploring more brand partnerships in the future director of Unstuck at the Tent Partnership said they eschew the typical relationship between charitable organizations and CPGs by focusing on securing work for a marginalized group “Rather than asking brands to donate a portion of their profits we connect them with world-class suppliers committed to hiring refugees and help them restart their lives,” said O’Flaherty “Unstuck’s first-of-its-kind model means that brands’ support for refugees is sustainable and long-term – and means we can grow our impact at scale as more brands and consumers join the Unstuck movement.” Chobani’s founder is himself an immigrant from Turkey, a country Unstuck is looking to work in. Ulukaya founded the Tent Partnership in 2016 to connect refugees seeking jobs to CPG companies. He has committed most of his wealth to helping the refugee crisis, according to a 2016 article in Nonprofit Quarterly Get the free daily newsletter read by industry experts The CPG manufacturer wants to grow the product into a $1 billion hydration brand by building its presence in everything from energy to cocktails The soda giant’s Red Tree Beverages subsidiary is making a bet that its vodka lemonade can help it gain a stronger foothold in booze Subscribe to the Food Dive free daily newsletter The free newsletter covering the top industry headlines Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker Successful Farming had a sneak peek at a social media video Land O’Lakes will launch during the game which shines a light on the genuine connection between consumers and farmers The Minnesota-based cooperative’s ad campaign aims to connect consumers to its farmer-owners through joining the farmcore social media trend The national butter brand recently staged a fashion show in Paris jeans and overalls — sourced from the cooperative’s farmers — in an ad campaign meant to “bring the farmcore aesthetic to life,” said Chief Marketing Officer Heather Malenshek but we also want to reach a younger audience,” she said we’re trying to find innovative ways to get people’s attention.” So Arden Hills-based Land O’Lakes is going all-in on farmcore a social media trend that romanticizes rural life with chic workwear “We’re having clothing be the star of the show so we can tell the stories of our farmer-owners in different ways,” Malenshek said Fourth-generation Winona County farmer Becky Clark told the company she donated work gloves “because we do a lot of hard and dirty work with our hands.” Clark wore the gloves when rebuilding her blizzard-battered barn in 2019 “I also thought about what my grandpa would have donated and I think he would’ve picked his shoes,” she said “He wore those out so much they had a hole in them but he just wore a sandwich bag over his socks instead of getting a new pair.” All the donated items carry tags with short stories about their owners to connect the food to the farmer — a long-running theme in Land O’Lakes advertising but are not always thought of when you’re buying a pound of butter or a bag of shredded cheese,” Pat Dunneback Founded in 1902, the Land O’Lakes has more than 1,000 farmer-owners and last year had $16.8 billion in revenue. The farmcore campaign launched in September to coincide with Paris Fashion Week, and the results so far are promising, Malenshek said. Land O’Lakes’ “Eat it like you own it” campaign for Land O’Lakes has given a 26% “purchase intent lift” among younger consumers, according to Battery, the agency behind it. Malenshek said it’s hard to stand out “in what is essentially a commodity category” when the biggest differences among direct butter and cheese competitors might be the name on the label or the price. Growing dairy brands like Tillamook have quickly won favor with Gen Z and millennial shoppers, Malenshek said. As the “big guy” in the market, Land O’Lakes needs to keep telling its story to connect with more of those younger consumers, she said. “‘Eat it like you own it’ is helping to tell that story about farmer ownership,” she said. “These younger consumers really do care about brands making some difference in the world.” Orion Magazine Expand image captionConserve School is an environmentally-focused boarding school on 1,200 acres of land in Land O’ Lakes, Wisconsin. Photo by Peter Kraus (used with permission) When students arrive, campus changes: hammocks bridge trees, Frisbees fly, chatter fills hallways. They come from Portland and D.C, Milwaukee and Cincinnati, Brooklyn and Atlanta to spend a semester in Wisconsin’s north woods. They come to study Environmental Science in old growth forest, to learn History while paddling like Lewis and Clark, to ponder wilderness while walking, writing, skiing and snowshoeing. There is something about learning and living, paddling and pitching tents that changes a collection of people into community. But I don’t know when it took place. When did I learn to identify the people around me not just by their voices and faces but by their strides and silhouettes? When did I start to see my students’ worries and wonders in the subtle shifts in the way they carry themselves to class? Now, as snow dusts trails and days grow short, we show stewardship by safeguarding the semester’s final weeks. We savor snowflakes, Saturdays, starry nights, and northern lights. I came to Conserve School to teach Environmental Stewardship–but I’ve learned stewardship is superficial when not grounded in reverence. So here in the north woods, I steward by saying thank-you. Thank-you for fox tracks and fresh snow, for light on lakes and students slip-sliding snow-slicked roads. Thank-you for the smell of balsam fir, for bonfires and backpacking, for the trails we’ve taken to get here and the ones that will usher us forward. Ford is the only Minnesota executive this year on the national CEO group’s board. Land O’Lakes CEO Beth Ford may have a busy year ahead after being appointed chair of the immigration committee for Business Roundtable, an influential national group of chief executives. If President-elect Donald Trump follows through with his campaign promises to rein in illegal immigration using workplace raids and increasing deportations — and at the same time limiting the number of legal immigrants — the business group will likely have a lot of lobbying to do. Its current stance is “pro-growth immigration reform that addresses workforce needs, coupled with stronger border security.” Business Roundtable is an organization of CEOs that, similar to the Chamber of Commerce, lobbies on behalf of U.S. businesses. Its 2025 board also includes the top bosses of Apple, United Airlines, PepsiCo, Walmart, Eli Lilly and American Express. Ford is the only Minnesota executive on the Business Roundtable board this year. “I look forward to continued service on the board and working with other CEOs to advance the organization’s mission,” Ford wrote on social media Thursday. “We are stronger when we work together to promote a thriving U.S. economy and expanded opportunity for all Americans.” Agribusinesses like Arden Hills-based Land O’Lakes, a Fortune 500 business, are especially dependent on immigrant labor. Just 61% of all agriculture workers were born in the U.S. as of 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, compared with 81% for all occupations. “Attracting immigrants is especially important today because of the critical shortage of workers,” the group says, though Business Roundtable’s immigration policy proposals have largely focused on skilled workers. Ford has built a national profile since being named the cooperative’s chief executive in 2018, earning a spot on Time magazine’s 100 most influential people list and serving on the President’s Export Council. BY BRUCE CRUMLEY @BRUCEC_INC Land O’Lakes corporate headquarters in Minneapolis alternative hiring and scheduling ideas that once seemed ludicrous started looking like smarter Land O’ Lakes faced serious challenges in filling open part-time positions at its Melrose a situation that led managers last year to start letting potential recruits select the times and lengths of their shifts That option for entry-level hires proved so popular–and productive–that it was gradually offered as an alternative to other employees at the Melrose plant The “flex-work” initiative has now been introduced at 60 of the company’s U.S sites and will eventually become an option in all 140 of Land O’ Lakes factories That decision to ease formerly ironclad shift rules isn’t surprising the Journal said one Land O’ Lakes factory “had 26 full-time open roles without a single application–but when it posted a single ad for a flex position more than 100 people applied.” Twice as many candidates still seek “flex-work” jobs as those with fixed hours and recruits tend to keep those positions longer than people working traditional shifts labor shortages inspired change that created happier workers they want to keep it simple from their perspective and say and it’s take it or leave it’,” Aaron Sojourner a Minnesota-based labor economist at the W.E “(G)iving workers more control over their schedules is a very valuable aspect of the job.” Should small company owners of other types of businesses also adopt the Land O’ Lakes response They’re all dealing with a labor market that is less ultra-rigid than 2022 and much of 2023 but is still much tighter than before the pandemic Even if they don’t go the “flex-work” route there are other ways in which more flexibile employee management has produced similar benefits for firms as employees focus on performing better in limited hours Yet small businesses are also dealing with different kinds of staffing problems than large manufacturers Labor Department data indicates factories are only filling 60 percent of their job openings–the lowest rate this century That labor shortfall is expected to worsen as the active workforce grows both smaller in numbers and younger in age even the predominantly positive effects of “flex-work” at Land O’ Lakes involves trade-offs With most of those positions concentrated in part-time jobs the company has been hiring two to three people to do the work of each full-time though those have mostly been offset by other factors–including what the paper describes as “increased retention and cutting back on overtime pay.” management and workers at Land O’ Lakes seem pleased with the change not just because of the quality-of-life improvements afforded by more flexible shifts Mother of three Raven Nelson was able to swap her former part-time job at the local post office for flex-work at Land ‘O Lakes and could then more easily sync her schedule to that of her husband who was also on staff at the Melrose plant “To be able to work the hours I want–it’s honestly the best thing any parent could ask for,” Nelson told the paper The super early-rate deadline for the 2025 Inc. Power Partner Awards is Friday, May 30, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply now Refreshed leadership advice from CEO Stephanie Mehta Learn More Land O'Lakes bids farewell to the American Indian woman's illustration that adorned its packaging since 1928.  The image of a non-specific American Indian with a feather in her hair kneeling will be replaced by .. with the phrase "Farmer-Owned" above the brandmark and "Since 1921" below we've recognized we need packaging that reflects the foundation and heart of our company culture – and nothing does that better than our farmer-owners whose milk is used to produce Land O'Lakes' dairy products," said Beth Ford president and CEO of Land O’Lakes Land O’Lakes was founded by a group of Minnesota dairy farmers in 1921 Land O'Lakes does not mention the American Indian illustration but rather focuses on the company being "a farmer-owned co-op" and the need to "better connect the men and women who grow our food with those who consume it." North Dakota Rep. Ruth Buffalo said of the previous Land O'Lakes logo went "hand-in-hand with human and sex trafficking of our women and girls ... by depicting Native women as sex objects," per The Grand Forks Tribune.  Land O'Lakes joins a growing group of organizations and schools that have opted to drop American Indian mascots or symbols the American Psychological Association called for the immediate retirement of all American Indian mascots The organization based its position 15 years ago on the body of social science literature that shows the harmful effects of racial stereotyping and inaccurate racial portrayals Follow Josh Rivera on Twitter: @Josh1Rivera 10-13-2023PREMIUM the century-old cooperative is deploying state-of-the-art research at its Innovation Center BY David Salazar the name Land O’Lakes is synonymous with dairy the 102-year-old cooperative—which counts nearly 3,000 agricultural retailers and producers among its owner-members—offers a slew of products and services aimed at helping farmers improve their crop yields This mission is especially important as climate change forces farmers to adapt to lower rainfall and higher temperatures in addition to simply improving the nutrition of their feedstock “Not every acre is created equal,” says Land O’Lakes COO Brett Bruggeman The company is focused on answering the question “How do we help stretch that acre to get the most out of it?” Land O’Lakes is working on advancing agricultural science in ways that are high-tech and hands-on and such protection solutions as pesticides and herbicides—doubled its earnings between 2020 and 2022 As Land O’Lakes posted losses in dairy in 2022 Land O’Lakes has fertilized this growth by pouring $10 million a year since 2017 into WinField United’s Innovation Center where researchers look for new ways to protect crops and increase their yields at one of the roughly 100 farm plots the company maintains to deliver localized insights to farmers staff evaluate these innovations in a variety of conditions The final deadline for Fast Company’s Brands That Matter Awards is Friday, May 30, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply today. Fast Company & Inc © 2025 Mansueto Ventures Fastcompany.com adheres to NewsGuard’s nine standards of credibility and transparency. Learn More 04-27-2021WORLD CHANGING IDEAS believes a national service model can help bridge the country’s digital divide [Source Images: Shelley Pauls/Unsplash, John Reed/Unsplash] BY Talib Visram “It’s simply unacceptable,” says Beth Ford CEO and president of agricultural co-operative Land O’Lakes That big name in butter started taking on the challenge over the last year with its American Connection Project, through which it’s increased access to free wifi by working with partners to make 3,000 local network spots public in 49 states the co-op is now taking further action to build digital infrastructure in rural corners around the country—by recruiting college graduates to go back to their hometowns and work with local institutions to roll out broadband and familiarize local residents with the tech Because broadband is a “major stabilizer,” Ford says the initiative also has the ability to “lead to a more vibrant and robust is launching the American Connection Corps which’ll comprise an initial class of 50 recruits aged 21 to 30 The program is starting in 12 largely rural states around the country chosen for their rurality and underserved populations plus another two staying on in that community after completion The 2019 Lead For America Change-maker Summit. [Photo: courtesy Lead For America]To implement the program, it’s teamed up with Lead For America an organization that has already adopted this national service model to send young people—who it calls fellows—back to underserved towns or tribal lands they may have grown up in that have lost populations because “the narrative of success often means leaving and not coming back.” This year the organization has 106 “dynamic and diverse” of its fellows on the ground; by 2040 is a “signal of hope” to residents that their communities are worthwhile “That’s saying that this is a place that is worthy of investment she says many young people have strong sense of “rootedness and responsibility,” and want to go home to improve conditions Though the setups will vary according to different community’s needs fellows will likely work with county governments though a few placements are with school districts and a handful with regional development organizations they’ll work on gathering accurate data on household internet speeds They’ll also organize digital bootcamps for schools and communities and make sure Main Street businesses and farmers are connected and search-optimized where needed The Biden administration has made a historic investment in broadband pledging $7 billion to reimburse communities for wifi access as part of the American Rescue Plan—but grassroots approaches are needed to facilitate the distribution it’s especially important to connect farming communities because they’re the “glue” that keep’s America’s food security together—and so solid connections will also allow for better and more sustainable Internet access is also an accelerant for job creation The hope is that a successful program will lead to investments in communities—and eventually will attract and retain new young professionals “What we’re trying to do is create an initiative where these young people go back in That revitalization is especially crucial as we recover from the past year’s economic shock there’s been a developing philosophy that the nature remote work means it doesn’t matter where you decide to live But: “I actually think it matters more than ever where we choose to live,” she says where we choose to live is also where we choose to commit ourselves to Where we choose to become part of the social and civic fabric.” Born and raised in London, Talib Visram is a Staff Writer at Fast Company in New York, where his digital and print reporting focuses on the social impact of business. A Master’s-trained multimedia journalist, he’s hosted a variety of audio and video programs, and moderated live events More the Frito Bandito and Anheuser Busch’s Spuds McKenzie were familiar sights on American packaging they were all eventually phased out for various reasons in favor of more generic mascots A successful mascot bonds people to brands, and the power those images can last for decades, translating into positive sentiment about a brand throughout a consumer's life The familiar image of the woman on the Land O’Lakes label has been on grocery store shelves for generations and its removal is likely to attract the interest of consumers who notice a difference Land O’Lakes could have drastically overhauled its tubs and boxes but the dairy giant no doubt is aware of the value its product packaging and the image that shoppers associate with the brand Instead of completely redesigning the brand’s packaging Land O’Lakes opted to simply omit the Native American woman and leave an empty "O" in her place The background remains a picturesque view of a crystal blue lake surrounded by pine trees with a yellow background While the company said this was an update to commemorate the brand’s 100th anniversary the singular removal of the most obvious aspect of the branding tells another story For years, the iconic image of the Native American woman, whose name is Mia, has been criticized for being inappropriate. In 2005, the American Psychological Association called for all American Indian mascots to be retired citing evidence of racial stereotypes harming social identity and self-esteem Land O’Lakes chose to focus on promoting the farmers that own the company and spotlight them as the impetus behind the brand update “As Land O’Lakes looks toward our 100th anniversary we’ve recognized we need packaging that reflects the foundation and heart of our company culture — and nothing does that better than our farmer-owners whose milk is used to produce Land O’Lakes’ dairy products,” Beth Ford will also include photos of real Land O’Lakes farmers and co-op members The company’s quiet removal of her image is likely an attempt to update its image without addressing the national conversation that has built up around the use of stereotypical imagery Land O’Lakes is not the first brand to reimagine branding that was based on a culturally inappropriate mascot porridge mix Cream of Wheat and Chiquita have all been altered to some extent albeit with varying levels of controversy still attached to their images it is probable that companies will continue to pursue updates to iconic images and mascots that are no longer socially acceptable brand refreshes are commonplace and there is no better time than a brand update to bring a design up to 21st century standards Although accomplishing this successfully will take some thought many brands have shown success in using generic imagery GoGo SqueeZ chose to feature anthropomorphic fruits drawn simply If Land O'Lakes decides to reintroduce a character Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F wants companies to voluntarily remove or replace commonly used synthetic colors before the end of 2026 Watchdog group Consumers’ Research warned butter giant Land O’Lakes on Friday that its climate-focused initiatives could expose it to lawsuits that may raise costs for customers according to a letter first shared with The Daily Wire “Consumers’ Research is concerned that it is only a matter of time before national grocers are subjected to state actions targeting their unrealistic net-zero commitments Hild’s letter pointed to multiple Land O’Lakes climate goals, which closely mirror net-zero targets set by JBS. These goals, featured in its 2021 ESG report and 2023 Community Impact report include reducing direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions by 42% by 2030 Land O’ Lakes’ statements on emissions reduction goals expose the company to the same type of litigation JBS currently faces,” Hild wrote James has alleged that JBS’s net-zero target is “greenwashing” that “exploits the pocketbooks of everyday Americans and the promise of a healthy planet for future generations” by misleading customers “The JBS lawsuit by General James has made plain that there is risk lurking in the ESG and sustainability commitments of countless grocers and food retailers There is no better time than now for Land O’ Lakes to course correct and pivot back to a pro-consumer approach to its business,” Hild wrote The letter went out the same time as Consumers’ Research sent out a “woke alert” detailing how Land O’Lakes has embraced a variety of other DEI and ESG policies the company detailed in its 2021 ESG report that it had mandated “unconscious bias training for all people leaders,” noted that the company has an annual DEI-themed summit and boasted that it scored 100% when ranked by the leftist Human Rights Campaign Its 2023 community impact report also included a bar measuring how many non-white males it had working for the company Screen shot: Community impact report Land O’Lakes The report said that the company wants to “expand supplier equity” and has instituted a “Supplier Diversity Program.” This program is for the company to focus on working with businesses owned by women Land O’Lakes also pushes several climate focused initiatives the community impact report said that the company was “committed to helping our member-owners reduce the environmental impact of farming especially the impacts of on-farm greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions” through its Dairy 2025 initiative the company hires consultants to measure the farmers’ “milk emission factor.” the Minnesota-based Land O’Lakes dropped the American Indian woman who had adorned its packaging for nearly 100 years after some people complained the logo was racist Your information could be the missing piece to an important story Submit your tip today and make a difference Connecting decision makers to a dynamic network of information Bloomberg quickly and accurately delivers business and financial information has found a way for its farmers to cash in on carbon dioxide trapped in soil Its subsidiary Truterra LLC agreed to sell as much as 100,000 metric tons worth of carbon credits to Microsoft Corp. wheat and cotton farmers to fetch $20 a ton this summer Minnesota-based company says its the first farmer-owned program of its kind.