Advancing Markets for Beef Producers

The Beef Producer Economic Resilience Initiative: Producer-Led Mentorship & Marketing Network 

American Farmland Trust’s $27M Beef Producer Economic Resilience Initiative, now part of USDA’s Advancing Markets for Producers (AMP) program, has been newly approved and will be entering a refreshed design and launch phase. The project uses a producer-led network approach to transition 700 beef producers across the MidAtlantic, Southeast, and Texas to profitable, resilient operations using sustainable grazing systems, while building market power through producer-led mentorship and marketing groups. The initiative will invest $19.5M directly in producers to adopt adaptive grazing, improve soil health, reduce risk, and increase returns, and will equip them with tools and training to verify their practices, and with relationships that build the network’s capacity to collaborate on accessing premiums from buyers seeking sustainably grazed beef. By aggregating supply, producer-led standards, and coordinating logistics, we aim to unlock both conventional beef industry premiums and sustainability-linked price premiums that strengthen rural economies and supply chain resilience, while improving soil health and all its co-benefits across the landscape. 

This project builds upon and scales up multiple existing and highly successful pilot efforts that have built technical assistance into peer-to-peer farmer networks through mentorship programs. The expansion of this project will help produce sustainably grazed beef for all levels of markets, from direct sales through local farmers’ markets to regional distribution channels and national and global consumer-facing food companies. 

Projected Impact

Adoption of sustainably grazed systems and producer led marketing group leadership will advance financial health of participating farmers and ranchers and supply chain resilience into the future by: 

• Increasing producer productivity and returns on investment 

• Reducing operating costs and risks 

• Creating additional value in existing markets  

• Opening doors to new markets with consumers seeking sustainably grazed beef 

• Building and maintaining healthy, highly functioning soils

• Reducing erosion and nutrient loss 

• Improving excess water drainage and storage, and water availability during drought 

• Improving pasture/range productivity by improved forage growth and quality 

• Approach that scales to grazing systems nationally  

Financial benefits to producers estimated:  

• Estimated economic benefits from improved soil health potentially on the order of $60/acre (variable by production system, soils, weather patterns, management).  

• Estimated economic benefits from marketing group collaboration include the value of standard industry premiums (aggregation and aligning to specs for $30-60/head), and the value of sustainability-linked premiums (practice and/or outcome verification, messaging, and marketing for $20-$100/head). 

Our Methods

Our project leverages the nationally applicable NRCS Soil Health Management Systems (SHMS), commonly known as the 4 Soil Health Principles, as adapted to grazing systems, including minimizing soil disturbance and maximizing soil cover, presence of living roots, and biodiversity (plants and appropriate livestock grazing integration) within the context of each producer. In addition, we will facilitate producers in building a self-sustaining producer-led mentorship and marketing network that improves practice adoption, data capture, and market readiness beyond the project period. 

• Highly trained early-adopter producer mentors will provide technical assistance and support to new adopters of sustainable grazing practices  

• Mentorship ensures successful transition to sustainable grazing systems, which drive economically thriving operations.  

• Producer marketing groups will collaborate to overcome barriers to market entry: aggregate beef volumes, collaborate on logistics and verification, meet industry standards plus network-designed sustainable grazing standards at scale.