Kansas City distiller J. Rieger & Co. has crafted a one-time edition of Cover Crop Whiskey, made with cereal rye from local farms, to raise awareness of more
sustainable farming practices.
Country Crock has launched its Cover Crop
whiskey project — a program to bring awareness
to sustainable farming practices — and The Cover Crops
Project, which provides
Kansas-area farmers with financial resources and training to plant cover
crops.
Country Crock, a signature brand of Upfield — a leading
producer of plant-based spreads in the US and Canada — is made from
soybeans grown by Kansas-area farmers. Unfortunately, commodity farmers
everywhere are dealing with soil fatigue from decades of
monocropping
— which erodes soil and depletes nutrients.
Country Crock
launched
The Cover Crops Project in 2020, in partnership with agricultural education
non-profit No-till on the Plains, as a three-year
program to support farmers with soil health education and cost-share to plant
cover crops to improve soil health on fields. Since its inception, the program
has enrolled acreages of cover crops in eastern Kansas and western Missouri
on soybean fields that have not been previously planted with a cover crop;
participating farmers are reimbursed $10 per acre for the cost of the cover
crop seed.
Elsewhere, cover cropping has become more
popular
in recent years as commodity farmers around the world turn to
regenerative farming
strategies
to restore soil health by returning nutrients, minimizing pests, increasing
water retention and more. Still, many farmers have yet to adopt the use of cover
crops, and the general public is largely unaware of them.
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So, Country Crock seized an opportunity to help educate farmers and the public
on the benefits of planting cover crops — such as cereal rye — in between
harvested crops to help replenish nutrient health and variety, and reduce
greenhouse gas emissions by returning carbon to the
soil
as a nutrient. To spread the word about The Cover Crops Project, Country Crock
teamed up with creative agency Ogilvy; and asked local Kansas City
distiller, J. Rieger & Co., to make a
limited-edition, special batch of rye whiskey — born from the cereal rye now
being used as a cover crop by local soybean farms — to show not only the soil
benefits of cover cropping, but the potential for additional cash crops, as
well.
“Cover crops are a game-changer for maintaining healthy farmlands,” says Chris
Turner, Executive Creative Director at Ogilvy. “We were thrilled that Ogilvy
could help raise awareness for sustainable farming practices through this
limited-edition Cover Crop Whiskey.”
Published May 11, 2022 8am EDT / 5am PDT / 1pm BST / 2pm CEST
Sustainable Brands Staff