Tractor Supply Pledges $300,000 to Conservation

Tractor Supply Company announced a conservation agreement with Ducks Unlimited (DU) and Trout Unlimited (TU) on World Nature Conservation Day, Thursday (TU).

Over the next three years, the Tractor Supply Company Foundation will invest $150,000 in each conservation group to support projects such as land conservation, wetland restoration, and tree planting.

Tractor Supply’s collaboration with DU and TU supports the company’s sustainability goals as part of its commitment to being “Stewards of Life Out Here.”

The partnership with DU aims to conserve 90,000 acres of working lands and wetland restoration, enough to save 12.5 million gallons of water, bringing Tractor Supply much closer to meeting its goal of saving 25 million gallons of water by 2025. The company’s collaboration with TU also benefits its water conservation efforts.

“To advance our stewardship efforts, Tractor Supply is dedicated to finding innovative solutions to put our values in action, such as partnerships like these,” said Mary Winn Pilkington, Tractor Supply Company Foundation president and senior vice president of investor relations and public relations.

“Trout Unlimited and Ducks Unlimited engage in conservation and restoration work that can have a direct impact in preserving Life Out Here for our customers, communities, and wildlife alike. We are proud to support these impactful conservation projects where we work, live, and play. We look forward to making great progress together in the communities we call home.”

Conservation in Action: Ducks Unlimited

Tractor Supply’s three-year partnership with DU will begin in 2022 and will focus on private lands in North Dakota and Texas.

The project in North Dakota aims to conserve 30,000 acres of working the land by reducing tillage, planting diverse cover crops, and incorporating grazing management practices to increase grass productivity and drought resistance.

The Prairie Pothole Region, North America’s most important waterfowl breeding habitat, is located in this high-priority landscape for DU.

Tractor Supply will contribute to DU’s Texas Prairie Wetlands Project, which aims to restore, enhance, and protect shallow, seasonally flooded wetland habitats on private lands in a 28-county focus area along the Texas Gulf Coast.

“This new, three-year partnership with Tractor Supply will help us consistently deliver more on-the-ground conservation projects that are beneficial for farmers, ranchers, and rural communities in Texas and North Dakota,” Dr. Karen Waldrop, Chief Conservation Officer at Ducks Unlimited, stated.

“Agriculture is at the heart of our traditional culture and core base of supporters, just as the ag community is a strong customer base for Tractor Supply. In serving our mutual customers, we can amplify our shared commitment to serve people who live the rural lifestyle.”

“Plant for our Future” by Trout Unlimited

Beginning this year, Tractor Supply’s support will broaden and deepen TU’s “Plant for our Future” campaign by planting 25,000 trees per year to intercept and store 4.12 million gallons of stormwater runoff and sequester 3.5 million pounds of CO2 by June 2025.

TU will also engage over 2,500 volunteers, including Tractor Supply Team Members and other community partners, in a national planting campaign as part of this collaboration.

“Trout Unlimited’s network of staff and volunteers across the country work tirelessly to care for the local rivers and streams in their communities,” said Helen Neville, Senior Scientist at Trout Unlimited.

“With a partner like Tractor Supply, whose stakeholders share the same commitment to conservation, we’ll be able to double the number of trees we plant – creating colder, cleaner, and healthier rivers while also removing thousands of pounds of CO2 from the atmosphere to combat climate change and conserving and cleaning millions of gallons of polluted stormwater runoff.”