Posted July 25, 2024 | By: Nutrien Ag Solutions

The USA Rice—Ducks Unlimited Rice Stewardship Partnership: Fostering Sustainability, Waterfowl Habitat and Grower Profitability

Hunting and farming are two beloved traditions steeped in generations of rural American culture.

And a new partnership between Nutrien Ag Solutions and Ducks Unlimited/USA Rice looks to secure the future of both traditions for generations to come.

So in this episode, Sally and Dusty are off to visit Ducks Unlimited world headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee for a chat with Agriculture Support Director Scott Manley.

U.S. growers produce rice on about 3 million acres each year, and we'll discuss how the new partnership helps support sustainable agriculture for rice growers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Texas and California.

With new practices and products for irrigation, sustainability and nutrient management, these farmers can not only provide food and habitat for our cherished migratory waterfowl populations, but also improve the sustainability footprint of rice production while increasing profitability.

We'll also discuss USA Rice and Ducks Unlimited's Climate Smart grant program for historically underserved growers. You can learn more by visiting usarice.com/sustainability.

Episode Transcript

Scott Manley

Ducks Unlimited is very, very supportive of agriculture because agriculture is in all of the major habitat areas for waterfowl. 

The farmer is our best land manager, and this partnership is all around the rice industry, and that's where the work with Nutrien is a natural link.

 

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 on 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 out 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 Scott Manley, Director of Agriculture Support at Ducks Unlimited. Scott, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for your hospitality, hosting us here at Ducks Unlimited world headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee. It's been an absolute pleasure to get to know you and the team and get to see your wonderful facility here.

 

Scott Manley

Well, good. Well, thank you too. It's been an honor to have you and the team. And thanks for some time this morning to share insights on how we can work together in the future.

 

Dusty Weis

Scott, we're here in Memphis at Ducks Unlimited’s headquarters because you've been working out the details of a new partnership with Nutrien Ag Solutions. What can you tell us about that? What have we got on the table here?

 

Scott Manley

Well, yes, Ducks Unlimited is very, very supportive of agriculture because agriculture is in all of the major flyways, all of the major habitat areas for waterfowl. 

The farmer is our best land manager and somebody who makes the decisions every day that are good for the environment and good for waterfowl. 

So we have a partnership with the rice industry. Lots of people don't know a lot about rice in the United States, but we have about 3 million acres of rice that we grow each year throughout the U.S. and this partnership is all around the rice industry, irrigation, sustainability, fertilizer management, all the things that not only provide habitat, but most importantly, a vibrant rice industry and a profitable rice industry.

And that's where the work with Nutrien is a natural link.

 

Sally Flis

Scott, what is the mission of Ducks Unlimited as you work with agriculture in the field around these different programs that we've got for rice, specifically?

 

Scott Manley

Yes, so our formal mission, of course, is to take care of waterfowl habitat across all of North America. So we have viable or fill the skies forever with waterfowl populations. And waterfowl are such a canary in the coal mine or a barometer of the health of the environment, especially wetlands. And like I said before, historical wetland areas are now modern-day agricultural areas.

And you have to take care of them together. Farmers are good at that. And we are here to serve as a catalyst, a source of support, a source of information to make good, productive, profitable farms, good waterfowl areas.

 

Dusty Weis

Now, Scott, as a waterfowl hunter myself, I understand your mission. It's something that vibes with me very, very personally because I can speak from experience when I say it's hard enough to find good habitat to hunt duck in.

So the Ducks Unlimited mission as far as preserving, protecting and growing habitat for duck, that makes plenty of sense to me.

But what about from a sustainability perspective? Why is protecting wetlands important from a sustainability perspective?

 

Scott Manley

Well, that's a great question, and I always try to simplify that down to convince people how related or intertwined or connected everything is. You know, when you look at a landscape that's busy producing food for the world, that landscape also is managing water, hopefully to the positive. It's managing soils, it's managing agricultural inputs. Those have greenhouse gas and environmental pluses and minuses.

And then of course, you have that land for wildlife habitat as well. And it's actually all connected. So if you can get everything just lined up right, you can sort of have all wins, you know, the win-win-win type situation of a productive farm, great wildlife habitat, conserve soil and water and keep a really viable, profitable, sustainable landscape for farm communities going forward.

So everything's connected. There's no separating the agriculture from the wildlife or the soil conservation from the water conservation. It's all connected. And that's what sustainability is all about.

 

Sally Flis

So, Scott, tell us a little bit about your background. What brought you to Ducks? What brought you to working in this agriculture/sustainability/wildlife intersection space for your career?

 

Scott Manley

Yeah, so I've been blessed. I actually didn't grow up on a farm. I'm not a farm boy, I grew up in Dallas, Texas, big city boy. Certainly Dallas is a lot bigger now than it was then, but surrounded by family who love the outdoors. So after I got out of high school, you know, went to college and got a wildlife degree and thought that I could travel the world as a wildlife technician and learn all kinds of things.

And that's what I did. I actually worked everywhere from the South Pole, South America, up in Canada, Alaska. I've worked all over the world. My parents finally told me I needed a job that was enough to, you know, pay my car insurance. And so I went to graduate school at Mississippi State University and had a love for agriculture, even back in those days.

Just realized that working lands, it's not like the set aside lands or the preservation lands, but as if you could learn to work with agriculture and you could learn to work with the oil and gas industry, those streams or those activities control or influence the land all over the world. If you can't work real good with agriculture and the oil and gas industry, then you're not going to touch but a fraction of the acres, you know, that are out there.

And so one thing led to another. I went to grad school at Mississippi State University, did work on sustainability type stuff, looking at practices and dollars and profitability and all the things we still look at today. But, you know, I did that in 1995, 30 years ago. And I've been fortunate enough with Ducks Unlimited to carry that on till now.

So I do think a lot of the things we do were a little ahead of their time. People look at you kind of funny every now and then, but I enjoy that. So let's keep being a little bit ahead of the time.

 

Dusty Weis

You know, to that point, Scott, and you've been doing this for 30 years that you said, how has the conversation around sustainability evolved during that time? What have you seen change about the goals that we're setting and the way that we're talking about them?

 

Scott Manley

Oh, gosh, things have completely changed. And they continue to change. But, you know, I'd say 30 years ago, a statement from a producer or a farmer might be, “Well, yes, I'm sustainable or I still wouldn't be here farming today.” I'll take it about ten years later and you get statements like, hey, maybe an example was the oil spill, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf Coast.

And the producers were, “We could band together and provide some habitat to keep these birds, most of these birds from getting into that oil. You know, here's a wildlife environmental stance we can make.” And they did. And then you go ten years later and you hear the talk was, “Well, people want to know more where their food comes from.”

And they want to know more stories about the farms, farm families, rural development, economies, a story, a good sustainability story. What we have to have today is we have to have the data to back up the practices, the outcomes, the environmental benefits. Data, data, data, data. So the journey continues to evolve and develop. But what we have to do is stay grounded in it's farmer first.

They're the ones that control the land again as it would be in oil/gas industry, the other example I used, and all ideas, all progress has to start with a discussion with the man or woman making lots of decisions every day on how things will be operated and what we can do again to have all that, those interconnected winds I talked about earlier.

 

Sally Flis

Scott, the Rice Stewardship Program that Nutrien Ag Solutions just joined as a partner for, has been around for more than ten years. Where did it start? Why did it start? Who else is involved and how do you guys operate and get programs on the ground with growers?

 

Scott Manley

First of all, thank you all. Thank you to Nutrien Ag Solutions for believing in our work and joining us more formally. And I just can't thank you enough. Your participation in our project adds credibility to our project, I am confident of that and I can't thank you enough. But the stories on how Rice Stewardship started are many and so it's kind of fun sometimes.

But the bottom line is the rice industry and it’s representative group, it's advocacy group is called USA Rice. USA Rice, Rice Industry Producer Leaders, Ducks Unlimited, even some of the corporations like yourselves just realized that maybe we could do more together, more formally. Maybe we should structure things in the USDA, the Department of Agriculture, and what they call the Natural Resources Conservation Service we already worked with closely.

Certainly we can get much more done together than we can sort of operating freely and apart. And so we put together a structure that was all about the mission to conserve working rice lands, water and wildlife. So there's the agricultural part, the conservation part, and the wildlife part, soil water conservation, the wildlife part. 

And then we wanted to use the strategies of on the ground improvements to farms, practices and infrastructure on farms, do a better job of communications, including policy work, and just a lot better job of promoting the synergy between rice and ducks.

So we started by building a field staff team. As you know, with your field staff teams, that's very important to have folks on the ground interacting with the producers. We worked with USDA on lots of various funding mechanisms, and we have done a good job of publishing results, working on conservation practices, lots of communications work to get the word out as well.

So it's a pretty big, well-rounded partnership. I could say it's the producers first, the on the ground field staff, U.S. Department of Agriculture and the supply chain, which y’all are a giant part of, all coming together to uphold the rice industry. I think it's a model that could be used for any commodity. In fact, I'm certain it is.

 

Dusty Weis

So Sally, Scott did a good job there, sort of laying out the reasons why Ducks Unlimited would want to partner with an organization like Nutrien Ag Solutions, but let's flip that on its head a little bit. Why would Nutrien Ag Solutions partner with an organization like Ducks Unlimited? How is that helping Nutrien meet its goals?

 

Sally Flis

I think it brings us great opportunities, Dusty, for getting more conservation, more of our programs on the ground, whether they're directly tied to rice or, you know, as we were talking yesterday in our planning and strategy meeting, these growers are growing more than rice. And we have programs for corn, we have programs for soybeans where we can get conservation or sustainable outcomes happening on every acre on that farm, in addition to the rice. 

It also helps us get access to more value to every grower and every acre through those US government USDA funds that ducks really has a better opportunity to obtain than Nutrien Ag Solutions does. And so how do we start bringing and stacking that corporate dollar, public dollar, private dollar together to bring the most value back to the grower for the practices and the impacts they're able to have on the ground.

And so it's just a really great synergy between the two organizations for their goals and our goals and putting the grower first as part of the programs that we're getting on the ground.

 

Dusty Weis

Scott, you guys have been doing rice stewardship for ten years now. What have been some of the big wins? What have been some of the things that you take back to the board and everybody says, “Holy cow, you managed to get that done? That's awesome.”

 

Scott Manley

Well, lots of things to be proud of. But if I sort of start with the most recent and work back, just recently, in the last couple of years, Tom Vilsack, who is the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, announced what we call the Partnerships for Climate Smart Commodities Grants. This was about $3.5 billion made available to the conservation community for on the ground work with farmers that reduces the greenhouse gas footprint of agricultural production.

And the Rice Stewardship Partnership applied for one of those grants, and he announced at Isbell Farms about two years ago from today that the grant proposal we turned in was the highest scoring, the highest ranking of 400 grants that were turned in. And I was so proud I could hardly believe what I had just heard. We actually asked for the cap of the grant application, which was 100 million, and we were awarded 80 million.

And I'm certain there's a Lord above because he made me keep my mouth shut, I almost said, “Well, Tom, why did you only give us 80 instead of 100 if we were the highest scoring grant in the country?” 

So it was pretty funny. But that's something we're very, very, very proud of. We also have been recently just this past congressional cycle, our partnership was recognized by the host of senators and congressmen in all six rice growing states through a congressional resolution both in the Senate and the House.

So being recognized by Congress! Six rice growing states, you know, all the congressional members put forth the resolution that was adopted and, you know, filed in the halls of Congress, that our partnership is an example or reflection of what can be done in this space. I think that that says a lot for all of us and says a lot for Nutrien joining forces with us.

 

Dusty Weis

Well, definitely. And certainly this partnership between Ducks Unlimited and Nutrien Ag Solutions is still in its infancy, but rice production is something that's been around for tens of thousands of years now. And so we're going to take a quick break here. And coming up after the break, I want to get into the weeds on what sustainable rice production looks like here in 2024.

More coming up with Scott Manley from Ducks Unlimited in a moment here on the FARMSMART Podcast.

This is the FARMSMART Podcast presented by Nutrien Ag Solutions. I'm Dusty Weis along with Sally Flis, and we're talking today with Scott Manley, the Director of Agriculture Support at Ducks Unlimited. Now, Scott, for someone who's not familiar with the rice production process, how is it cultivated at a mass scale?

 

Scott Manley

Well, a lot of people, rice is in their life, but they really have never thought about where it comes from, how it's produced. Rice is the most widely consumed grain worldwide. Now, here in America, the average person eats about 30 pounds of rice a day. Excuse me, that’d be a lot, a year. 

And that includes rice that’s in beverages like a nice Budweiser or things like that. And we grow about 3/3.5 million acres of rice. That's a small fraction of the global production. But why it's really unique is one, it's a very, very highly productive crop. It can be 8 to 10,000 pounds of rice per acre. A lot of rice can come off of an acre.

It's very, very, very productive crop. And it's also grown as an aquatic crop, right. So there's your Ducks Unlimited connection right there. And it's the most important thing besides it being so productive and therefore valuable. It's expensive to grow as well. But it's very valuable crop because of its yields. But the fact that it's grown in an aquatic environment makes it a natural wetland habitat.

The soils were all wetlands a century or two ago. Infrastructure has been put in place now to make that good for agriculture, and it is great for agriculture, but it can still be managed as wetlands. The rice grows in water in the summertime, wetland characteristics there. But the most important thing we do for waterfowl, they dry down, harvest the rice in the fall, and then we let rainfall refill those floods in the wintertime. And that's your waterfowl habitat. 

Out of the 3 million acres of rice grown each year, easily a quarter to a third of those acres are shallow water during the winter time for waterfowl to use as habitat, and they still use the dry acres as well. So that's 3 million acres of irreplaceable habitat for ducks.

 

Dusty Weis

And you're telling me that the ducks that I hunt in Wisconsin in the fall are probably wintering down here in those flooded out rice fields?

 

Scott Manley

I promise you that the birds that are in Wisconsin in October are in these rice fields down here by December.

 

Dusty Weis

Well, I'm glad I know where to find them in the winter because I sure don't know where to find them in the fall.

 

Scott Manley

[laughs]

 

Sally Flis

So, Scott, one of the things that we've talked a lot about on the podcast is the 4R Nutrient Stewardship approach. And I know your other partners in the program, like Mosaic, this is a big thing that they're involved in, they promote. 

How does that 4R nutrient stewardship approach play into the environmental challenges that we see in rice production for either greenhouse gases or water quality? And what are some of the things that you guys are doing with growers to help drive more adoption of 4R practices on the ground?

 

Scott Manley

Well, yes, and we've learned a lot, thanks to partners like you and Mosaic and others about the nutrient management and the “Four R’s”. And when it comes to the rice production system, if I try to really oversimplify it, it's all about the nutrient management and the water management. Rice is really expensive to grow. Let's just say it's $800 an acre a year, per acre, to grow.

And again, it produces a lot of grain. So you get that back. But that's a lot of money. $800 an acre is a lot. About 2 to 250 of that is the fertilizer, mostly nitrogen, but also the other important crop nutrients. And the other $200/$250 an acre is the energy for water management. So it takes 24, 26, 28in of water.

It's about $8 an acre inch. So you, you know, eight times 25, $200. There's your money there. And you all know how fertilizer costs are. So if we can focus on efficiency, management, conservation of the energy for irrigation, the water for irrigation and the nutrients for the crop, not only are you doing good things for the environment, but you're doing good things for the crop and the bottom line and the business side of things.

So we focus on the simple practices for nitrogen, which is split applications, use the amount you need for the crop that you can realistically grow and use what y'all call the urea Ace inhibitors on the nitrogen that's put on dry ground early in the season. And then the whole journey with the other crop nutrients, potash and phosphate and other micronutrients, is kind of more of a journey.

Soil sampling, you have to know what you have in order to know what to add. And it's not every year and it's not every crop. Let's say soybeans, for example. So I have learned, I personally have learned a lot about managing those types of nutrients, not the annual nitrogen applications, but all of the other important nutrients and how you have to do your soils work, do your applications, do your soils work again.

And it's more of a journey. I mean, 4R Nutrient Stewardship isn't sort of a do it once and call it done. It's kind of like a journey.

 

Sally Flis

Yeah, we were talking about that again yesterday when we were talking about where we have these great synergies is: we hear so often from the public or from downstream, “Can't we just do this one thing? Can't every grower just do this one thing?” And just like you're saying with the 4R Nutrient Stewardship, there's always other things that impact that one decision. There's so much happening in these biological systems, whether it's considering habitat or water or the following crop or the previous crop, that it's not just a decision to use a product or use a practice, you got to think about the whole system or it's not going to get the end result you want for the grower or the environment, right? 

 

Scott Manley

Yeah I mean, it's a challenge for a producer to not only take care of this year's production activities and all the pressures that come with it, but then you're asking them to think about, “Well, where do you want to see this place five years from now?” 

It's like, really? I mean, I'd love to visit with you on this, but, you know, and that's where we can help and certainly that's where you all help.

But we did a research study, went back to people that are participating in our program and ask them, you know, “What did you learn? What did you do? What did you find the most value in?” And the nutrient management side of things, especially on the Gulf Coast where the soils are, you know, much more challenging. Coastal plain soils are hard to work with.

But that was the number one thing that those producers said that they want to continue the journey on is nutrient management, and we should listen to that.

 

Sally Flis

Exactly, I agree.

 

Dusty Weis

What about water management? I mean, when you were breaking down sort of the costs per acre of growing rice, you said that water and getting it on and off and on and off the field again is more than a quarter of the cost of raising rice. What sorts of water management techniques have come up in the last couple of years here that people are really making headway with?

 

Scott Manley

Yeah. So a lot of times we're trying to simplify our work or simplify priorities to people, I say the 3 or 4 most important things about rice production are water, water and water. So, you know, it's because the irrigation or the water that's needed for rice is a lot. But actually our irrigated landscapes for agriculture are the guaranteed bread baskets for the future if you don't deplete your water resources.

And those water resources are shared, they're not just agricultural water resources. Those are also the rural municipalities, rural communities, those are industries water, paper, lots of industries need a lot of water. So water is super important. 

We are striving in every way for all irrigated crops to be able to grow more bushels with less water. We call it crop per drop. You know, we're trying to get more bushels out of less water. And it's particularly ground water. Groundwater is very, very important in the Mississippi River Valley, Gulf Coast, Central Valley at California, Playa lakes, or the Central Plains. I mean, groundwater is critical globally and one of the most stressed resources that we have. So, so what do we do about it?

We basically hit it from two angles. One angle is the efficiency side of things. So, you know, we don't want to waste any water and we want to get the biggest yields for the water that we use. We use different practices like automation of pumping systems, soil moisture monitoring to know when to start and when to stop the watering.

And there's even some practices we call like intermittent flooding or alternate wetting and drying, where we flood the rice crop but let it dry down, maybe catch some rains in there, flood the rice crop, let it drop down, and that kind of practice can cut the water use in half, called alternate wetting and drying. 

The other thing we do is try to use more surface water. This rice country around here gets 60in of rain a year. You think, hey, if you only need 30in of water to grow rice, I mean there's twice as much of it hits the ground, but it comes in the winter, in the early spring and comes during the growing season, but sometimes kind of all at once. 

So we do everything in the world to use more surface water, capturing it from drainage ways, natural lakes, or bayous, even create some on farm storage, what we call tail water recovery or on farm reservoirs. 

But the two strategies are efficiency and use more surface water, less ground water.

 

Sally Flis

Scott, we've talked about a lot of practices that growers can implement, but we've talked about that need for technical assistance and what the investments might be in order to do some of these practices you mentioned. So what are the hurdles that you go through and discuss with growers as you're getting on new acres to implement these conservation practices?

 

Scott Manley

Well, there's kind of two challenges, and we do our best to address both. And I bet Nutrien could really help us learn challenge number one. And challenge number one is basically any time you do something new, trial something new, it's still a little disruptive at the farm, you know, and compared to the status quo. 

Some practices like the alternate wetting and drying I was talking about earlier, farmers for generations, you know, have been told to put that water at four inches and you leave it there for the rest of the year. Now, I'm telling you, it's okay to let it dry down and when. And I'd say, “Well you know, there's better times than others to let it dry down,” and all that stuff. 

So the practice nuances, that's a good word for it. The practice sophistication or they're not too sophisticated, but it's a change. You're asking for change and nuanced change and for people to trial that.

And they either need a neighbor, a farmer neighbor that's often great, a trusted advisor from Nutrien or Ducks Unlimited or USA Rice. They need somebody to encourage and travel with them on these changes, and they don't need it to be too much change at once. So the practice implementation, something new is always a hurdle. 

The other part that I think we're really good at is a lot of these conservation programs that offer incentives and offer help, technical assistance help, come with paperwork, administrative paperwork, and we do everything in the world we can to take that off of the producers back.

But I do think at some point they'll have to get their son or grandson. Someone's going to have to learn it for them to make it a constant or consistent part of their business. And I try to convince the growers that we work with is that these conservation incentives, whatever you want to call them, funding for conservation can be a significant part of your business portfolio, not just a little bit, but a lot.

You know, I hate to give a percentage or anything like that. Some farms are big, some are little, but it's worth the long run. It is worth the long run. And I think Nutrien will agree with that. 

 

Sally Flis

For sure it is. And I definitely agree with the paperwork part from whether it's administering the grants or it's what we've got to collect from growers for data to prove that they did what they did on an acre or that they are meeting specific requirements of the USDA. It's a lot of work. And so it's great that you all are able to help with that piece in getting that done, because there's value not just in the payments that the grower is receiving to implement the practices, but that long term value of, as we mentioned earlier, better soil health, better efficiency on the acre that helps them maintain that production over time.

 

Scott Manley

Right. And we're after everything from a conservation history that helps you get a better loan rate, to land improvements that make your equity go up, to the conservation practices that make your bottom line like you're talking about better. I mean, we're trying to help from every angle. That all stacks up to be what I call a conservation business stream.

We need that to be strong on every farm.

 

Dusty Weis

Well, and you've done a great job as well just learning to speak the language of agriculture, talking to people in a language that they understand. And at the end of the day, making it worth it in their bottom line. I think that is going to win more people over than anything else as well. 

But as you look back at the progress that you've made and the successes, the wins, everything that you've gotten done here, how do you feel about the future of America's wetlands?

 

Scott Manley

I think every organization, conservation organization probably started off decades ago, maybe the 30’s of the Dust Bowl era when so much conservation was born in a preservation mindset. Right? Like we just got to protect, set aside, defend the native habitats that are out there. 

And that is a strategy. And it is important. But probably more important is to learn to work with the working forests, working agricultural lands, working industry lands for oil and gas, and the list goes on.

If we do not figure out how to integrate wetlands conservation into everything else that's going on, on the landscape, then we're not going to win.

 

Sally Flis

Scott, one of the programs we talked about yesterday that you guys just opened up enrollment for is for historically underserved growers that are going to implement structural type practices that let them grow more rice on their farms. What is a historically underserved grower by USDA's definition, and what are the opportunities in this new sign-up period?

 

Scott Manley

Well, yes, Sally, like I said before, every year we try to bring new financial resources to rice producers all across rice country. And right now, we're busy deploying our Climate Smart grant that we spoke about earlier. But one of the most important parts of our Climate Smart grant is funding for what we call, or USDA calls the historically underserved.

Yeah, it's kind of inside jargon, but “underserved” to USDA is any minority farmers, veterans—obviously very important—and then the young and beginning just getting into business type, you know, younger farmers. 

And USDA sees that we should bring special opportunities to those categories of producers. So in that light, we have a sign up. We convinced Secretary Vilsack that, you know, many of the minority farmers, their farms have not had the blessings of being improved yet. And when I mean improved, I mean, the infrastructure improvements sort of like renovating your house, you know, they need to be brought up to modern standards of electricity, land forming, drainage control structures, land leveling, you know, true sort of home renovations, but farm renovations so they can do climate smart practices in the future. 

So this special sign up is in all six states, rice growing states. That's California, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas and Missouri. 

It starts this week, and anybody who fits those categories can apply for on farm improvements for growing rice in a climate smart way. And I encourage everybody to go look at www.USARice.com on the sustainability tab for details to sign up. 

Plus there's a list of staff that are ready to help anybody and everybody with this application process, so you don't have to wade through the website on your own.

 

Dusty Weis

Well and Scott we'll put a link to that in the episode description as well. So if you pull up the episode description right now, you'll see that link there. And you can click on it without having to type it in. 

And I've just got to end here by saying, Scott, this has been a great conversation. Your enthusiasm for it is certainly contagious. And again, it's been an absolute pleasure for us to get to know you a little bit better, to get familiar with Ducks Unlimited, which is an organization, again, that just has so much respect among the grower community, among the hunter community, among the environmental community. 

You guys have got it going on and you're doing it right. So we appreciate the hospitality that you've shown us. We're excited about the partnership with Nutrien Ag Solutions. And again, we've just got to thank you so much for joining us here on the podcast. 

Scott Manley, the Director of Agriculture Support at Ducks Unlimited, thank you so much for joining us on this episode of the FARMSMART Podcast.

 

Scott Manley

Well, thank you too and Sally, I really look forward to working with you going forward.

 

Sally Flis

Same here Scott.

 

Dusty Weis

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 in 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 Matt Covarrubias, 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.