Trusted farm advisors—agronomists, ag retailers, independent consultants, and others—play a critical role in helping farmers navigate complexity, manage risk, and adopt regenerative practices. Yet their potential to drive large‑scale impact remains under‑recognized and under‑supported.
The Farmer Advisor Roadmap provides a clear, collaborative framework to strengthen and scale the role of these advisors—aligning public and private efforts, guiding smarter investment, and coordinating action to accelerate regenerative agriculture.
A Shared Framework for Action
Developed through an eight‑month, multi‑stakeholder process convened by The Nature Conservancy, the Roadmap identifies the most important barriers limiting advisor impact and lays out actionable recommendations to overcome them. It is designed to support leaders across the agriculture system in working more effectively together. The Roadmap focuses on:
Elevating Awareness
Elevating Awareness of the Role and Value of Farmer Advisors
Farmer advisors are among the most trusted sources of information for farmers, yet their role in advancing regenerative agriculture is often overlooked. Retailers, co‑ops, private agronomists and other advisors influence everyday decisions that shape soil health, water quality and farm resilience.
Elevating awareness of their impact helps position advisors as essential partners in scaling conservation outcomes. Greater recognition can also drive interest and investment from policymakers, funders and supply‑chain partners looking to support meaningful change in agriculture.
Advancing New Business Models
Advancing Outcomes‑driven Business Models
To scale regenerative agriculture, farmer advisors need business models that work for both the environment and their bottom line.
The Farm Advisor Roadmap focuses on demonstrating how diversified revenue models focused on whole-farm outcomes can deliver measurable results for farms while creating new and sustainable financial opportunities for advisors. This includes building a clear business case for services such as technical assistance, data support and access to specialized equipment.
By aligning economic incentives with environmental outcomes, advisors are better positioned to support long‑term adoption of regenerative practices.
Building Skills & Infrastructure
Building Advisor Skills, Capacity, and Shared Infrastructure
Many farm advisors want to support regenerative practices but face gaps in training, tools and capacity. The roadmap prioritizes building skills in conservation agronomy, expanding workforce development and increasing access to critical equipment and decision‑support tools. It also emphasizes shared infrastructure, such as training programs, incentive clearinghouses and peer networks, that reduce barriers and speed adoption.
Investing in advisor capacity ensures they can meet growing farmer demand with confidence and consistency.
Improving Investments
Improving Coordination and Durability of Investment
Lasting progress depends on better coordination across public, private and philanthropic investment. The roadmap calls for aligning funding and strategies to reduce fragmentation and extend the impact of individual projects.
Stronger coordination helps ensure investments reinforce one another and support advisors beyond short‑term pilots. By focusing on durability and alignment, the roadmap aims to create stable conditions for business innovation that allow regenerative agriculture to scale and endure over time.
How the Roadmap Can Support Your Work
The Farmer Advisor Roadmap is for anyone working to deliver economic and environmental outcomes— and who understands that lasting change depends on the advisors that farmers trust most. Here are some ways the Roadmap can support your work:
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Farm Advisors and Ag Retailers
Find guidance on how regenerative services can become a viable, valuable part of evolving business models, supported by new skills, tools and partnerships.
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Funders and Investors
Use the Roadmap to identify high-impact opportunities where coordinated, strategic investment can de-risk innovation and unlock durable, system-level change.
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Food and Agriculture Supply Chain Partners
See how collaborating with trusted advisors can strengthen farmer engagement and deliver more credible, scalable sustainability outcomes.
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Policymakers and Agency Leaders
Explore ways to better align public programs with private-sector technical assistance—tapping new pathways to deliver conservation on working lands.
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Conservation, Research, and Technical Assistance Entities
Use the Roadmap as a shared framework to coordinate efforts, connect insights to practice, and magnify impact.
No matter your role, this Roadmap is for those ready to move from isolated efforts to coordinated action—aligning resources, incentives and expertise to strengthen farm advisors and scale regenerative agriculture.
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This roadmap is a living framework. We encourage you to read, share, and use it to inform strategy, guide investment and spark collaboration across sectors. As you explore the recommendations, consider how your role, resources and influence can help move this work forward.
Together, we can strengthen the systems—and the advisors—that make regenerative agriculture possible.
Roadmap Development Team
Advisory Members
