“Soil Stay,” the Sustainable Lotus Grande winner for Education, was created by VML Thailand, Bangkok, for Tra Mongkut Fertilizer. The innovative B2B initiative also took Bronze in Brand Experience Lotus, Direct Lotus, and PR Lotus.

A fertilizer company won its highest category honour by revolutionising agri-tourism to empower farmers and literally grow with them. They did so by focusing on what was right under their noses, but did not fully understand: their own soil.

The Uncultivated Data

Thailand has more than 13 million farmers and over 300 distinct soil types. Many farmers lack the understanding about these different soil types, their needs, and that farming practice is not one-size-fits-all. Without the information, the soil gets overworked, yields decline over time, and profitability falls. The issue was not effort, it was access to practical information.

Tra Mongkut already had that information. Over more than a decade, the company had built Thailand’s largest soil database, mapping more than 300 soil types nationwide and linking them to model farms suited to each profile. It was a valuable asset, but mostly remained an internal research tool.

The Insight

Tra Mongkut wanted to share its rich soil database, but also understood  farmers’ skepticism of corporations. So they educated through tangible hands-on experience by trusted peers, other farmers. 

Soil Twins

Tra Mongkut had farmers bring in their soil samples, analysed them, and utilised their vast database to match them with a model farm that had the same soil profile but higher yields and greater profitability. he farmers stayed at their twin farms to learn first-hand how to best utilised their soil for greater yield. They returned with knowledge they could apply directly to their fields.

The “Airbnb for farmers” model allowed Tra Mongkut to share its practical knowledge on different soil types it has accumulated over decades with farmers, and through farmers. By farmers sending in their samples, it was also became an entry point into the programme to allow  Tra Mongkut to continue its research to further improve productivity. 

From Supplier to Partner

By allowing farmers to learn first-hand from their “soil twin” peers, Tra Mongkut did not have to say anything. The results did the talking. With significant yield increase and profitability, Tra Mongkut earned the trust of the farmers by empowering them with the know-how for a more sustainable future.

Healthy soil does not always need more correction. It needs the right correction, in the right amount, at the right time. The message was not “farm hard.” It was “farm right.”

Beyond the Launch

Sustainable Lotus rewards work that drive transformational change and positively impact the world and its people. 

“Soil Stay” is innovative not with technology, but its ingenious solution that analysed decades of data, utilised it in a practical way, through the right channel, and to the right people..

While 10,000 farmers have been educated through the initiative, it has become part of Thailand’s wider sustainability conversation with far reaching future impact for many more. 

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