Welcome to Landscape Relationship Management (LRM) by Producers Trust

My greatest moments of hope and inspiration on how to sustainably scale food and agriculture systems come from thinking about successful landscape developments. And this has led us to launch innovation in this space. We call it landscape relationship management, or LRM.

When governments, farmers and farmer associations, private finance, public finance, brands, retailers, and other direct and indirect supply chain stakeholders work together, incredible outcomes can be achieved at scale. 

For example…

The government of Thailand has come together with Mars, Pepsi, GCF, GIZ, Ebro, and Olam to scale sustainable rice production as a national strategy, lifting up farmers and benefiting the downstream brands. 

In the Netherlands, RaboBank and McCain have come together to create a market driven, finance supported, farmer transition to regenerative agriculture. 

There is also Scotland, where Diageo has led a regenerative agriculture program that brings together leadership from the public sector with technology innovators to drive the transition to regenerative agriculture and the scaling of the supply chain for data-validated barley and wheat.

In South America, Producers Trust is leading one of the largest agroforestry programs in the world with an aim to inspire a more profitable and sustainable model for cocoa production.

These examples illustrate the undeniable power that exists when diverse stakeholders come together to share intelligence, resources, and historical learnings to achieve a shared outcome: driving scaled developments of sustainable agriculture. 

We’ve all heard that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts…

Yet, when it comes to supply chains, stakeholders typically operate in silos. 

Brands do not individually have the resources or direct access to farmers to implement efficient  interventions across their vast supply chains. 

Producer groups in the global south tend to lack market access and market guarantees, financial de-risking, and technical expertise making it challenging for them to take on a scaled transformation to regenerative agriculture.  

And the leading NGOs and IGOs channel resources to small farmer development programs that often lack the economic engine needed for a regional shift to resilient and sustainable agriculture systems.   

The Big Picture

In my conversations with organizational leaders across the public and private sector, I hear a growing understanding, willingness, and at times budgeted preparations, to build multi-stakeholder programs that promote widespread farming transitions to regenerative agriculture. 

We form alliances, hold conferences calls, exchange emails, create spreadsheets, and align our goals. However, all too often great enthusiasm results in sluggish or halted initiatives.

Introducing LRM: Unlocking Sustainability at Scale

In witnessing the breakdown of well-intentioned initiatives, we at Producers Trust have created a technology solution called Landscape Relationship Management™ or LRM™.

Landscape Relationship Management™ will lead sustainable systems change for supply chain and partnership management.

What We Have Learned

In reflecting on Producers Trust’s evolution over the last 7.5 years, we see the resulting playbook for building public-private landscapes. In recent months, we have come to understand what makes a successful or unsuccessful landscape program.

We’ve investigated how Producers Trust established trust and partnered with a decentralized network of extension service providers, cooperatives, farming associations, ministries of agriculture and other farmer support organizations. 

We explored what has worked in other industries to scale complex multi-stakeholder initiatives. 

Additionally, we pulled insights from other industries with indirect partner channels (like high-tech, financial services and pharma) about using automation technology and navigating complex stakeholder relationships. 

We collaborated with Salesforce, the market leader in CRM and PRM (Partner Relationship Management) solutions, and Accenture who are Salesforce’s #1 Consulting and Systems Integration partner.

And together we’ve come up with a solution that addresses our needs as a landscape developer to more efficiently and intelligently design and implement sustainable supply chain solutions. 

Producers Trust is launching LRM this week at Dreamforce and will be presenting our solution at NYCW 2024 at multiple forums. 

If you are a public or private sector leader in sustainable food systems and supply chains, we hope that this innovation with LRM will help you to achieve your ambitious sustainability goals.  We look forward to sharing our solution with you soon.