Biocontrol Technologies Offer a New Edge in Sustainable Ag, with President of Global Retail Jeff Tarsi

Pest control has always been at the top of a farmer's mind throughout the growing season.

But new biocontrol technologies are opening up innovative ways to leverage pests' natural enemies to the grower's advantage and boost crop yields while improving sustainability footprints and operating margins.

Nutrien Ag Solutions just announced its acquisition of Suncor Energy’s AgroScience assets, which consists of several patented and patent pending technologies in the area of biocontrol.

This new biocontrol technology is expected to introduce chlorin-based photosensitizer to the global market as a biocontrol solution for integrated pest management.

And so in this episode, we're talking to Nutrien Ag Solutions President of Global Retail Jeff Tarsi about this and other ways Nutrien continues to push the sustainability envelope.

Plus, we'll look back at the last three years in Nutrien Ag Solutions' sustainability journey and the massive progress that has been made.

Episode Transcript

Jeff Tarsi

Within Nutrien Ag Solutions, we've invested $500 million in our biological platform: a host of opportunities producing food and fiber in a more sustainable manner. And I think that is an exciting frontier.

Dusty Weis

Welcome to the FARMSMART Podcast, presented by Nutrien Ag Solutions, where every month we're talking to sustainable agriculture experts from throughout the industry. 

As the leading source of insight for growers and evolving their sustainability practices while staying grounded in agronomic proof, FARMSMART is where sustainability meets opportunity.

Sally Flis

We don't just talk change. We're in the field helping you identify the products, practices and technologies that bring the future to your fields faster. I'm Dr. Sally Flis, Director of Program Design and Outcome Management.

Dusty Weis

And I'm Dusty Weis, and we're joined now by Jeff Tarsi, President of Global Retail at Nutrien Ag Solutions. Jeff, thank you for joining us. Good to see you again.

Jeff Tarsi

Hey, I'm excited about you two joining me in my office here in Memphis today and look forward to a good conversation.

Dusty Weis

So the launch of this podcast three years ago coincided with the announcement of some pretty ambitious sustainability programs and goals for Nutrien Ag Solutions. And in the time since then, we've transitioned and through the post-Covid world, quote unquote, there have been supply chain issues, labor shortages, war in Europe, just a few of the things that we've made it through during that time.

You've also been transitioning during that time into the role of President of Global Retail. So how have you ensured that the company keeps its eye on the ball with sustainability during all these unpredictable times?

Jeff Tarsi

First of all, it's hard to believe that was three years ago that we had that discussion. Yeah, I always ask yourself, where does time go? But as you mentioned, we went through, thats probably, I'm really start my 40th year in this industry. And that three year period of time might have been one of the most unique periods of time that I've been through in my career.

And I like to reference from the standpoint that I personally believe we saw three Black Swan events. And I don't know that I saw a Black Swan event in the previous 37 years.

Dusty Weis

I'd just as soon not see any more in the next 37 years. If I'm being honest.

Jeff Tarsi

I am right with you from that standpoint. But that's part of being with an organization like Nutrien, from a standpoint that we do have to be adaptable, we have to be flexible, and we have to be able to meet whatever circumstances are thrown our way. And so we went through a lot there, both from a company perspective, from a supply chain standpoint, from a food security standpoint.

And I'm happy to report today that we went through all of that, and we were able to service our customers and we were able to keep our eye on the ball as it related to sustainability. You hit some peaks and valleys, and when you're worried about food security, the first thing you worried about is producing enough food to feed a growing population.

One of the things that bothered me a little bit when we went through that is that I felt like some of the other things did take a backseat during that period of time. But now we're back. We're out of supply chain issues. We obviously still have the conflict in the Ukraine, and we've got a conflict over in the Middle East as well that we're dealing with today.

But we've also gotten ourselves back refocused as an organization and more so and than an organization, as an industry owned the things that we need to be doing to grow and produce food and fiber in a sustainable manner.

Sally Flis

Jeff, as Dusty mentioned in the opening statement there, you know, we talked about some really big, ambitious goals around sustainability when we started all this in 2021 and how sustainability is kind of a culture change shift in the discussions we might have with growers and crop consultants on the ground. So what have you seen as you've traveled around North America over the last three years, and how maybe some of those discussions have shifted as you interact with our people on the ground, in the field?

Jeff Tarsi

Yeah, I think anything and like any initiatives and especially new initiatives that we introduce again, as an industry, not just as Nutrien, but being a leader in our field, we want to be the leader in all of these areas. You know, the one thing that this doesn't change, even though the initiatives do change, is the education part of it.

So people use the word sustainability a lot, and they use it very loosely. I like to say they really like to use it at 40,000 and 100,000 feet, but nothing gets done as it relates to sustainability until it happens at the ground level and on the farm. And so one of the things that I've seen is that we had a lot more educating to do in that arena than anybody thought.

But again, how do you know how much you need to do when you're really evolving into a new practice? I like to think of it in that manner. And so we've done a lot of education. We've also in our organization, number one, we have 4000 agronomists globally, and we service 600,000 customers. And so we have a huge part of that responsibility, and probably more so than the education part of it, is building that solution for that grower that allows him to grow a crop or produce food and fiber in a sustainable manner.

And so I think, number one, we've spent a lot more time from an education standpoint. Number two, we've done a lot of work to figure out how we need to collaborate with other people in the industry, namely people that are making food ingredients and food products. And what's that part we play? And look, we play a part and we know that because they're knocking on our door every day.

Why are they knocking on the door every day? Because we have 600,000 customers that happen to be growers, where all this starts. And so we're continuing to learn, and that process is nowhere near done yet, in my opinion.

 I'd like to share some ideas with you. Just in the last month, I traveled internationally quite a bit, and I'm amazed when I go to other continents and other countries, and I see the intense desire that they have around sustainability. 

Australia I would have to term it as a leader in the field. And really and truthfully, those growers didn't have a lot of choice. They don't have all the things that we have from an annual rainfall standpoint, topsoil and richness of the soil and such. And so they're doing the things that are absolutely necessary that allow them to continue in their production of food. And so they've adapted to practices over there really quickly. 

I just arrived back this morning, I mean, literally hours ago from Brazil. And I can tell you that the Brazilian growers have a lot of interest as well. And how do they preserve their soil in a better way? How do they get on the forefront of sustainability? Because it's all about marketing your products with the end user in mind and being attractive to these companies that are taking the products that our growers produce and putting them into food products.

And the last thing I'll mention is that three weeks ago, I found myself in the absolute jungles of Malaysia and we were visiting an extremely large potash customer, and we were in a palm plantation, and the agronomists there were educating us on their practices for growing palm, which is converted into palm oil. And they just kept going through these programs that they have as it relates to sustainability and producing sustainable palm oil.

And I asked a lot of questions about the different prescriptions that they had and the different solutions, and they would answer back, well, that doesn't fit what we want to do from a sustainability standpoint. And so it's quite amazing to me in that this is one area… we normally lead in North America. But I can tell you that every area that's producing food is interested in how they can do it in a more sustainable manner.

Sally Flis

Well, and I think to follow on your comments on that whole idea of the 40,000 foot aspect. Right? So many times when we're talking to that next step downstream, getting away from the field, they're at a very high level. And I like to remind them that what we do on the ground every day with growers, what those crop consultants are doing every day with growers, is trying to optimize productivity, increase efficiency, which all give us these sustainable outcomes.

So at the end of the day, doing the better agronomy that we want to do with growers every day is the sustainability answer. And then working with them, like you say, to find what is the thing that they're trying to solve for that we can help find the right solution to meet those goals.

Jeff Tarsi

That's correct. And look, I've said this all through my career, and I believe this so strongly that our greatest conservationists we have in the world are our farmer customers. And, you know, if you think about it, the land, the soil, the waterways, that's their largest investment, that they have the largest balance sheet item that they have, and it's their ticket to produce income.

And so it's not a difficult job in working with these customers, no matter where you are, because they're interested to begin with. Now, you know, one of the issues that we have is today, we don't see a steady, reliable income stream that comes when a grower chooses to change his practice to do something in a more sustainable manner.

And Sally, I know we're working very hard at Nutrien and with our offices in Washington DC and Jeremy Stump in government relations, in that, how can we see that the growers are rewarded for changing these practices? And again, within Nutrien Ag Solutions, we've invested $500 million over the last five years in our biological platform, because we feel like that platform offers a host of opportunities as far as producing food and fiber in a more sustainable manner.

And I think that is absolutely an exciting frontier. You know, we see that platform growing to about $11 billion market by 2030. And I always use this comparison, $11 billion just in the biological space. That's almost equal today to what the total crop protection market is in North America. So that's very substantial. And I think we're just at the tip of the iceberg of the products that we're going to see in that space.

I know we just made an investment into Suncor Products that we press released here in the last week, and that's our first entry into bio-controls. So what we've been investing in it are bio-stimulants, bio-nutritionals, and now today we've bought a portfolio of biological products that will put us in the space of bio-controls, we’ll be several years off before introducing those products.

But this is going to be a big platform, and I really feel like we're as well positioned as anyone in the industry in that space, in what we can arm our crop consultants with when we're going out and building those solutions that we talked about.

Dusty Weis

As you mentioned, we continue to expand on the proprietary product area, the enhanced efficiency fertilizers, the biologicals and the seed offerings. What is the value to the farmer of these, and how do they give Nutrien Ag Solutions an edge in the field?

Jeff Tarsi

You know what I always say that the secret sauce to our retail business is our proprietary products business. And I want people to understand we're not a new entrant into that space. These businesses, many of them, and a lot of the product lines date back 60 years or more. Through the history of our organization, we've always been an adjuvant and surfactant company and water conditioning products and those type things.

And we've also been in the crop protection space. You know, when you look at post-patent products and improving formulations, those type things. But what's really been exciting, I want to say it’s new, but it's really going back 20 years is, you know, we have added our proprietary seed line, we market as Dyna-Gro and Proven in North America.

And we have our own germplasm in canola today. We have our own germplasm in cotton. We have some really exciting germplasm in rice today, which is being grown right here. And if we go 50 miles in any direction of where we're sitting in this office here today. So those things are all exciting. But I just went through the biological platform of that and the nutritional components and platforms of that, and what's meaningful.

And you ask, what does that do for our growers and such? First of all, we wouldn't enter into any of these product spaces if it didn't bring an increased value for our growers, if it didn't bring an opportunity to increase their ROI or increase their production on an acre of land. 

Again, it allows us to build that solution from start to finish. So we can start with the seed. We can go to the seed treatments. We're proprietary in that as well. And then we can follow through with the crop protection. We've got the nutritionals. Today in the world of plants, these are highly, highly engineered plants today. Much more so than when I started in this industry. But at the same time, when you engineer these plants so high for productivity, you also bring on new demands as to how you feed those plants nutritionally. And the timing of those feedings are very essential to maximizing production on it. 

So we're soil testing before we put crops in the ground. And again, we're following the 4Rs that you hear so much, but we want to make sure we put the right product at the right place, at the right time, in the right quantity. And so we're getting this crop off to a great start. But then once this crop is started, then we're coming in and doing petiole analysis.

These plants require high horsepower and you've got to be able to feed them nutritionally. And we have those products in our portfolio that allow us to go in and test a plant, see what it’s deficient in, and then write a prescription to fill that need to make sure that we're again, pushing these hybrids and pushing these crops to maximize their production.

And look, I'm ecstatic that we have a platform like that. And I think we stand apart from a lot of others from that standpoint.

Dusty Weis

It's a big toolbox. And sort of the interesting thing about it that we wind up talking about a lot here on the podcast is you can give someone the biggest toolbox in the world and set it down in front of them. But if they reach for the hammer every time, it's not doing you a whole lot of good.

And so we're going to step away for a short break here. But coming up after that break, I want to ask you a little bit more about how you begin to instill those practice changes and incentivize those practice changes and build up the interest in that whole toolbox that Nutrien Ag Solutions brings to the table. More coming up with Jeff Tarsi in a moment here on the FARMSMART Podcast.

Dusty Weis

This is the FARMSMART Podcast, presented by Nutrien Ag Solutions. I'm Dusty Weis along with Sally Flis, and we're talking today with Jeff Tarsi, the President of Global Retail at Nutrien Ag Solutions. And Jeff, whenever we announce a new offering or an initiative, there's always going to be growers or early adopters who are going to rush right out and they're going to dive right in on it. They're going to try it. 

But over the past few years, we've also created some incentive programs that help improve the ROI for growers. And how is that helped drive interest in these practices and improve the financial sustainability for growers in the field?

Jeff Tarsi

You know, again, with the grower, they want to have conservation in mind. They want to do things in the best way possible that treats the planet in the best way possible. But at the same time, every change you make adds a bit of cost or change to your program. And so a lot of times, a really good way to lead somebody into these changes is with some kind of incentive and I don't think that's any different at any walk of life for anybody.

When you put an incentive out there, it's also a way of solidifying with that grower that you believe in what you're asking him to do, and you believe it so much that you're willing to put an incentive toward that side of it.

And so, again, it's leading people into and you mentioned it before, your top 10%. We used to call them bell cows or whatever, but they're going there regardless. But 10% doesn't get it done. Okay. We need the masses to follow as well. And you know, I've talked about education and the time it takes to get acceptance in this.

And it's finding a way to speed that up. And I do think we need to speed it up as an industry. We need to move toward these findings and these things that we know much faster than we are today.

Sally Flis

Jeff, an important part of being able to pay those incentives and find others downstream from us in the consumer brands that are willing to pay those incentives is being able to measure and show the impacts of all the things we've got in this toolbox to do new practices and programs on the field. So what are some of the things that we have available or that you've seen been excited about in the field over the last three years for us to be able to really show the downstream that what we're doing is sustainable.

Jeff Tarsi

Look, today, everything is about data, data, data, data. When I started in this industry in 1985, I used to say that our decisions were based 50% on science and 50% on art. We'd say, is it art or is it science? Today? I'd say that that is shifted now to 85% science and 15% art.

And art will always have some component in agriculture, because we have so many variables that exist in there. But I'm also going to tell you that I think that 85 is going to grow to 95 in the next ten years. And so we're equipped and again, we talk about our platform a lot, but we're equipped to gather and to compile a lot of data. And again, it's good to have data, but how do you use that data. And so you got to put it in a format that you can mine the data and that you can see through the layers of it.

And we've been able to do that. And we look at it, our investments we've made in Echelon, our investments that we've made Agrible, these are all layering of information. And then how we use that information to make decisions. And we have the largest fleet of application equipment in world. I won't give the pure number of applicators we have because I catch a lot of heck about the amount of capital it takes to run this business.

But we've got a lot of big equipment and here's a neat thing about this equipment. This equipment is all highly technical today. And so when we're going across a field and we're making an application, whether it's a nutritional, whether it's a fungicide or a herbicide, we're gathering that data. And then we can take that data. We can take time, temperature, wind direction, you name it, we can layer that data in that database.

And so when we talk about taking these mounds of data, everything starts with the soil test. When a crop comes off, when a crop comes off we say that's the end of the season. But it also is the beginning of the next season. And so we start with our soil testing to start building our prescriptions going forward. But we're trying to collect as much data as we can as we go through that crop.

When I talked about taking the petiole analysis or leaf tissue samples and those types of things with it, what herbicides do we use, were they pre-emergent, where they post emergence? And so we're taking that data and we're putting it in a, I call it a repository or a data lake. And then from that data lake, now we can start mining through it for instance we can take like soil attributes.

It doesn't matter if it's across four states or four counties. We can take all of those like attributes that we have within that database. And then we could look at different germplasm and different hybrids and how they reacted in different fertility rates. It's just mind boggling to me. I started out as an agronomist in ‘85. I wish I had that amount of data at that time to help make decisions.

And then I think that the next step, now 75% of every story right now is around A.I. 

Dusty Weis

Artificial intelligence.

And you know what? So many of those headlines are so sensational and so nonsense oriented. But here's a use case right here, where you've got a giant mound of data and you can turn something like an artificial intelligence loose on it, and all of the sudden you're finding insights that nobody even expected to find in there.

Jeff Tarsi

We absolutely are. And it's almost inconceivable to try to think of all the things that you can do with that data. And I know I follow the health care industry very closely. And I've got a daughter that just finished her fellowship as a doctor, and I see how they're using A.I., again, mounds of data in research, stuff that you couldn't physically do yourself that A.I. can go in and analyze so quick.

Well, the medical field and agricultural field are very closely related, and we're in a very good place with Nutrien Ag Solutions because we collect a lot of data. And if you look at a lot of these companies that specialize in this area, what do they not have? They got the technology, but they don't have the data. And so I think it's going to create some remarkable opportunities.

And I look again for Nutrien and Nutrien Ag Solutions to be a leader in building those partnerships and relationships. That again, the end result of this is to be able to make a recommendation or build a solution much quicker, much more timely, and that is going to build productivity even better in my opinion going forward. I just think being a young person in this industry right now, to me is so exciting because there’re going to be tools that these young people are dealing with that I never, ever could even remotely think about when I started in this industry.

And that excites me. It does. And I also hope that it helps attract more people into agriculture. And you don't have to come from a farm to be involved. You just think what we're talking about right now is technical. We're talking about technology and information, data mining, those types of things. And so you don't have to come from a farm.

We need expertise in a broad, broad array. Sally knows this. I greatly desire to attract more females to our business, and I'm never satisfied with where we are in that relationship. I think this technology is going to help us attract more females into this space, and we need them there. It's an exciting place to be.

Sally Flis

Well, Jeff, you mentioned other opportunities that we have, and we talked a little bit about return on investment and the financial sustainability of the farm being important. And could you just touch a little on what we have to offer through our Nutrien Financial programs in North America that can be tied to our sustainability programs, or just can help growers pick and finance the things they need to do to meet that financial sustainability.

Jeff Tarsi

Yeah, I think as, you know, we're halfway through 24 right now. You know, we said that A.I. is on everybody's mind and data is on everybody's mind. I think if you went and talked to growers today, one of the things that first roll off their lips is financing. With a high interest rate environment right now that changes the ballgame a lot.

Again, we made significant investments in our financial platform that we refer to as Nutrien Financial. We stood up a captive probably 5 to 6 years ago, and this gives us a lot more flexibility in the type of finance programs we can build with our growers. And earlier we talked about incentives, can you use an incentive to get somebody to do something a little bit quicker?

And Sally, that's one of the things we're working with as it relates to sustainability that, you know, as we build these solutions for these growers or we work with other cooperators in the industry, there are things that we can do around specific products that maybe we offer a special financing program around our biologicals. I'm using that as an example, around some of our nutritionals and those type things.

We have a tremendous amount of flexibility. We also work very closely with our multinational cooperators out there as well. And they’ll have specific products that they all want to put in a solution. We're building around sustainability, and they also allow us through Nutrien Financial or help subsidize that in a way that incentivizes a grower to, hey, let's try this out and we can offer you this incentive to do it.

And again, you do all that in the name of hoping that that leads to adoption and leads to a faster rate of adoption. It’s not tricking anybody we already know the results. I always say this. I will never ask one of my agronomists to go out and sell something to a grower that I would not personally leave this office and go sell myself.

So we know these products, we know the solutions that we're building. We test them. Sally, we've got four farms in North America that are our farms, and I don't mean a 5 or 10 acre farm, but very large research centers that we test all of these products on before we go to our growers with the solution. We can't allow them to take that risk.

So when we go out there with that solution it’s tested. It's tried. We know the results with it.

Dusty Weis

You know, just a lot of water under the bridge, a lot of the air through the engine in the years since we started this podcast, in the years since you ascended to your role as president here. But I did go back and listen to episode two of this podcast, which is the first time I met you. We had you as our first real guest on the podcast here.

And you said at the time, this was back in 2021 that you thought sustainability was going to become table stakes in the world of agriculture. And certainly I think that's a statement that I think has aged very, very well. But when you look at where agriculture is now and where Nutrien Ag Solutions is now, how would you say the conversation around sustainability has changed over the last three years?

Jeff Tarsi

We referred to this back just to be it in that I do, and I'm always honest in my assertions. I think we got kicked off course. The industry did a bit as we dealt with some of the Black Swan events that we've talked about, but at the same time, and when I said that, I think it'll become table stakes. And I still very much feel that way. 

At the end of the day, we will produce the products in the ways that our consumers have a demand for them. And so if consumers want a certain product and they want that certain product produced or grown in a certain way, then that's what we're going to do. That's what we're going to lead our growers to do. And that's what our growers are going to set up their practices to do. 

And I think that obviously we have a much more educated consumer base today around food production, food security. They're interested in it. I'll give you an example. When I have free time, I love going into schools here in Shelby County, and I like to go into the STEM program that a lot of the public schools have here and such, and I'm trying to get them interested in agriculture.

And some days I can tell it’s just not gelling with them, most of them don't know where their food comes from. They don't know how it got on their table. I mean, very elementary stuff. If somebody said they had a donut for breakfast, I said, what's the donut made out of? They have no idea.

Dusty Weis

Came off the donut tree, right?

Jeff Tarsi

Flour, and it came from wheat. But here's when I see them perk up. If I mention sustainability, all the heads raise and eyes get focused on you. They know that word. And in their mind, whatever that definition is that they think they understand about it is something that interests them. And that's what tells me, you know, if I'm sitting talking to a sixth grade class or I'm talking to juniors and seniors in high school, that's your next level of consumer that's buying our goods and services and food and fiber and such.

And I can tell you sustainability resonates with them. Most of them, is something they're interested in, but they don't correlate that it starts at the farm. I just think it just magically appears in the food. And so I like this. I like the fact that that's something they're interested in. And I'll ask before I start these classes, who's interested in agriculture for a career?

I've been in classrooms before where no one raised their hand. Okay. Then when I talk about sustainability, I ask when I leave, and most of the time I got 30% of the classroom, just got their hand raised that they're interested, because that's something they're interested in. And it relates and it touched back to what we do on a farm.

And I always say this, my dad used to tell me this, he was in a farm equipment business, and he'd say, son, you better pay attention to what your customer is telling you that they want. And our customer really, at the end of the day, is the consumer. Now our direct customer at Nutrien Ag Solutions is the grower, but the grower’s customer is the consumer.

And so you always have to have your eye on the consumer. What are their habits? Do they have a change in preference of the things that they like or how they want to see it grown and such? And so we got a lot of jobs we do every day, but that's part of it. We got to anticipate what we think consumer demand is, and then we got to figure out a structure and a platform in which to accomplish that.

Dusty Weis

Well, and certainly at Nutrien Ag Solutions, we talk about feeding the future together as being the mission that drives us. And when you're talking about the future, there's nothing quite as rooted in the future as a classroom full of kids. And so certainly I think that you've got your finger on the pulse of something there. And it's a great message, great mission all the way across the board.

And we sure appreciate your taking the time to join us yet again to tell us a little bit more about it. Jeff Tarsi, the President of Global Retail at Nutrien Ag Solutions. Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of the FARMSMART Podcast.

Jeff Tarsi

My pleasure.

Dusty Weis

And that is going to conclude this episode of the FARMSMART Podcast. New episodes arrive every month, so make sure you subscribe to the FARMSMART Podcast on your favorite app and visit nutrienagsolutions.com/farmsmart to learn more. 

The FARMSMART Podcast is brought to you by Nutrien Ag Solutions with editing by Macky Mikunda. 

And the FARMSMART Podcast is produced by Podcamp Media, branded podcast production for businesses. Podcampmedia.com 

I'm Dusty Weis for Nutrien Ag Solutions. Thanks for listening.