Todd Petersen

Core Team, Strategy Working Group 

Todd Petersen works with ag businesses and crop advisors to support and promote farming practices that build soil health and reduce nutrient losses from agricultural systems.  He works with ag retail organizations, cooperatives, and independent crop advisors across the Corn Belt as they help farmers adopt practices that improve the long-term productivity and resiliency of their cropping systems.   

Petersen graduated from Saint Olaf College with a bachelor’s degree in Biology-Plant Ecology, and earned his M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Agronomy from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.  He studied nitrogen cycle and water quality in dairy systems at the USDA-ARS at the University of Minnesota and joined the agronomy faculty at the University of Nebraska.  He was involved in some of the early research on how to use precision farming technologies to protect water quality. He joined Pioneer Hi-Bred (now Corteva Ag Sciences) where he led their precision farming group, and later moved on to the Land O’ Lakes companies where he developed ag technology tools and worked on documenting sustainability of ag system.  Petersen joined The Nature Conservancy in 2018.