Netafim says it has launched a program to help growers who want to transition to drip irrigation by connecting them to available funding through corporate partners — such as Google and Keurig Dr. Pepper — to help both meet sustainability goals.
“We will typically find a project in an area where [the corporate partner is] active or that is part of a watershed that [the corporate partner is] active in, and we’ll connect them with a farmer,” said Mike Hemman, senior vice president of the North America Division of Netafim.
Hemman said growers want to utilize drip irrigation to gain water efficiencies but don’t always have the capital to make it happen; the corporate partnership helps growers offset the cost of investing in drip irrigation. He said these growers often automate their drip irrigation, which provides data and real measurable savings for the grower and the corporate partner.
“[These corporate partners] can go back and as part of their sustainability initiatives and talk about the things that they’re doing in their own backyard to promote water improvement and help to conserve water,” he said.
Hemman said another way that Netafim helps growers seeking to make this transition is to connect them to state and federal grants that can further offset the cost of the switch.
“Typically, what we hear about when we have water scarcity is the best way to solve the problem is don’t farm,” he said. “And what we say is, ‘There’s lots of ways to solve this.’ You can save a tremendous amount of water just by switching your irrigation system.”
Aside from just water savings, Hemman said growers can also reduce emissions by pumping less water. And with drip irrigation, growers deploy fertilizer right at the source instead of blanket applications. Notably, growers utilizing drip irrigation can also reduce tillage and prevent soil erosion, he said.
Recycled dripline program
Hemman said another noteworthy effort from Netafim is its recycled dripline program, which launched in 2023, in which the company works with growers to recycle end-of-life dripline. Many leafy greens growers have shifted to a one-use dripline to cut down on the labor needed to install and remove and reinstall the line the next season, he said.
“Think about a short-cycle crop, like lettuce, a 45- to 60-day crop,” he said. “You may get three crops over the course of a year. Now, you’re using a disposable drip irrigation system — at least the tape from the system — three times a year.”
He said while this might reduce labor, the amount of drip line used increases, as does the waste once that line is no longer in use. Netafim stepped in to create its Ag Vantage program in which the company handles the removal and recycling of this plastic dripline.
“When the drip line is at the end of its life, we deliver it to our recycling facility in Fowler, [Calif.,] and we process that used drip line and we recover the plastic resin that’s in the drip line, and then we remanufacture the drip line utilizing that recycled content and send it back out to the farmer,” Hemman said.
The Fowler plant is close to Netafim’s manufacturing plant and has worked hard to perfect this recycling program, he said.
“The amount of recycled material that we can utilize in a thin-walled drip tape is pretty incredible,” he said.
The program goes through a third-party certification to indicate the dripline is 100% recycled, Hemman said, adding that many large leafy-greens growers use the program.
“We have logos and branding that [growers] can utilize in their efforts around sustainability,” he said. “Anytime you can go to Costco or Walmart and talk about the positive things that you’re doing around sustainability, it’s a message they want to hear, and as consumers as well, it’s a message that we want to hear.”
Growers can also look at using the recycled drip irrigation as an offset to other areas of the business where sustainability goals may be a bit harder, such as plastic reductions in packaging.
“Part of what you’re doing to offset that impact is you’re using drip irrigation that’s recycled, so maybe you don’t have that direct impact from the [removal of a plastic] clamshell, but you do have an impact and an improvement in the amount of plastics in the environment because the recycling program you utilize,” Hemman said.
