Loveland, CO – Nutrien Ag Solutions is ushering in a new chapter at its Innovation Farm location in Champaign, Illinois, with a new facility that showcases the Nutrien Agronomy team's commitment to research at the scale of farming.
The facility will host the 16-person onsite team representing differentiated agronomic capabilities from Nutrien Ag Solutions. The building will serve as a hub to host events such as trainings, team meetings and customer engagements. The team moved into the facility in November and started hosting events this January, already holding 18 events in the new space.
While the building is an excellent venue for hosting events and trainings, the main purpose of the facility is to accelerate the adoption of new technology for its grower customers and retail locations, focusing on whole acre solutions. The Innovation Farm trials demonstrate the integration of products, practices, and technology to create confidence in recommendations that can be shared with Nutrien Ag Solutions’ team of agronomists and crop consultants across the U.S. and Canada, as well as with the broader agriculture industry.
“Our Innovation Farm Network runs off five essential components: equipment, technology, products, practices, and people. In my opinion, people are the most important component out of the list,” says Thaddeus Bates, Senior Manager, Applied Agronomy. “Many people have supported and put in a lot of work to get our Champaign Innovation Farm to where it is today. There have been many hands involved in this project, and we’re grateful for everyone’s support in bringing this vision to life.”
Nutrien purchased the 282 acres of farmland in 2019 with the vision to transform the land into the center it is today. For the past six years, the Champaign team has been cultivating the soil, conducting research at the speed of farming, and even hosted the national award-winning FFA project for Nutrien Ag Solutions’ first ever student ambassador, Avery Watson.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held on March 20 to celebrate the beginning of this new era for the Champaign Innovation Farm. Nutrien Ag Solutions employees, local growers, supplier representatives, state legislators, community members, and members of the ag media were in attendance. Following the ribbon-cutting ceremony, attendees were hosted at the farm for lunch and visited stations that demonstrated the various focuses of the farm, such as the drones and RTK precision-enabled machinery being deployed on the farm’s trials, highlights from Nutrien Ag Solutions’ proprietary products shelves, weather services, and precision agronomy programs.
About The Innovation Farm Network
In addition to the Champaign farm, Nutrien Ag Solutions also has three other farms in its Innovation Farm Network. The other locations are Selma, California; Winterville, Mississippi; and Owensboro, Kentucky. The goal of this network is to collect field insights at a scale that is transferable to the average grower’s operation. This allows for a realistic and relatable look at how full-acre solutions perform, allowing for growers to easily see how these practices could be integrated on their farms.
“Our goal with our Innovation Farm Network is to grow agriculture by sharing the knowledge that we gather on these farms, not by promoting specific products, but by sharing the practices, products, and technology that have been demonstrated to successfully work together as a full-acre approach that is efficient, attainable, and repeatable by farmers across North America,” says Paul Bonnett, Senior Director, Nutrien Agronomy.
For more information, visit nutrienagsolutions.com.