Sustainability progress

There appears to be at least two distinct efforts to define sustainability in relation to agriculture in the U.S. One - a broader effort - is being led by the Madison, Wisc.-based Leonardo Academy. The other - which has been rumored to be in the works for a while - is focused on fresh produce issues and is expected to defined more clearly by the end of the month. That latter effort - which Tim York described to me in general terms at the recent Fresh Summit - will involve a coalition of buyers, associations, suppliers and non governmental organizations (environmental/consumer groups).

Here is a release from Nov. 3 about the Leonardo Academy's work in regard to sustainability:

The Standards Committee that is spearheading the development of a national standard for sustainable agriculture took a major step forward this week with the election of its leadership. Marty Matlock, Director of the Center of Agricultural and Rural Sustainability at the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture, was elected to serve as Chairman of the Committee, while Ronald Moore, Moore Farms and American Soybean Association, will serve as Vice-Chair. Will Healy, Research and Technical Manager at Ball Innovations, will serve as Secretary; and Grace Gershuny, representing the Organic Trade Association (OTA), will hold the seat of Vice-Secretary.

The Standards Committee Officers were elected by members of the Standards Committee and appointed by Leonardo Academy, the neutral, third-party ANSI- accredited organization facilitating the development process for the SCS-001 sustainable agriculture standard.

"Leonardo Academy is very pleased that such a diverse group of individuals has been elected to lead the workings of the Standards Committee," said Michael Arny, President of Leonardo Academy. "This leadership exemplifies the depth of agricultural expertise and range of viewpoints represented on the Committee. We look forward to working with the Committee's leadership as it guides the discussion and consensus-building on the many issues that need to be addressed as the standard development process moves forward."

As Chairman of the Standards Committee, Matlock will work with the Committee to identify and deliberate the issues that will be considered for inclusion in the sustainable agriculture standard, as well as to assign tasks to Committee members and subcommittees to foster progress on issues under consideration. Among Matlock's more challenging responsibilities will be to guide the Committee in identifying which issues can be agreed upon at the outset and to help steer a path of consensus on the more difficult issues raised by Committee members and stakeholders.

"Sustainable production of agricultural food, fiber and fuel is the one of the most challenging issues our generation faces. There may be as many as 9.5 billion people coming to dinner by 2050. The decisions we make today will determine how we feed them and their children, how we eat tomorrow and throughout the 21st century," Matlock said.

Ronald Moore, Standards Committee Vice-Chair, stressed the importance of a sustainability standard in meeting this challenge. "It is vitally important that production agriculture from the Midwest is represented during the process of developing a standard for sustainable agriculture," he noted. "The farmers that I represent are the environmental stewards of millions of acres of land, so it is an advantage for all stakeholders to have farmer input and leadership on this committee. All sectors of agriculture must work together on a final standard that is socially responsible, environmentally sound, and economically viable today -- and in the future -- for the production of low cost, high quality food, feed, fiber, and fuel."

Will Healy, Committee Secretary, believes that defining sustainability is crucial to the industry of agriculture. "The problem today is that the agricultural heritage of America is being lost," he said. "There are a lot of misunderstandings, misconceptions and misinformation generated about what we as growers do and how this impacts consumers. Identifying a framework and set of indicators for sustainability will provide us all with a target to move toward, improve our production systems and enhance our products in ways that are not only better for the environment but for growers and consumers also."

Committee Vice-Secretary Grace Gershuny noted that the theory and practice of organic agriculture has been at the leading edge of the concept of sustainability from its inception. "Many of us believe organic should be recognized as the foundation of this current discussion around standards for Sustainable Agriculture," she said. "I believe that it is important for OTA, which has the mission to 'promote and protect the growth of organic trade, to benefit the environment, farmers, the public and the economy,' to actively engage in this discussion."

One of the most distinguishing aspects of this open consensus process for developing a national standard is that it provides a forum for discussing and vetting differences in opinion over what sustainability means across all sectors of agriculture. While ideas vary on a number of issues, Healy stresses that, "We are all concerned about water consumption, land use, chemical inputs. This process allows us to come together as a group and to send a common message that the agricultural industry is concerned about sustainable production and that we want to move forward in a positive way."

Here is coverage of my interview with Tim York in the Nov. 3 issue of The Packer:

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A coalition of fresh produce buyers, grower-shippers, trade associations and consumer groups plan to announce in November a new project to define and measure sustainability.

Tim York, president of Markon Cooperative Inc., Salinas, Calif., is (one of several industry stakeholders involved with )the initiative. He said the industry should learn from the lessons that foodborne illness outbreaks have provided in the past two years, the most important being specific guidelines.

"We didn't have that prior to the leafy greens metrics," York said. "You had industry guidance that said you should consider, you should evaluate, you should look at these things, but it wasn't specific. It wasn't measurable, and it wasn't verifiable."

Another lesson learned from the industry's struggle with food safety, he said, is the importance of change coming from within the industry.

"Because there wasn't a strong industry-driven standard, you had buyers and third-party auditors developing their own standards," he said.

That has resulted in a multiplication of audits and food safety costs for the industry, York said.

The importance of including environmental groups in the process reflects a lesson learned from the food safety issue, he said. Environmental groups were critical of some of the industry's food safety practices, going so far as to call the leafy greens rules a "scorched earth" policy.

Now, with increasing momentum for sustainability standards, York said the industry will seek to avoid the same outcome.

He said most major buyers already have a sustainability office within their organization or at least put the responsibility on their food safety staff.

At this point, York said the industry must work together and develop a common way of evaluating what sustainability really means.

York said the industry-led effort is distinct from the standard-setting work of the Madison, Wis.-based Leonardo Academy.

On Sept. 29, the Leonardo Academy issued a news release that said that the first steps toward developing a national standard for sustainable agriculture in the U.S. had been taken. The Leonardo Academy said more than 50 representatives of U.S. agricultural production, food and clothing, manufacturing, retail, environmental, labor and academia launched negotiations over the definition of sustainable agriculture.

The process is sanctioned by the American National Standards Institute, a national voluntary standards body that has helped develop standards for a variety of business sectors, the news release said. Leonardo Academy is an accredited standard developer for ANSI.

Amanda Raster, the projects manager for the sustainability standards with the Leonardo Academy, said she was not aware of any rival industry-driven initiative to create sustainability standard.

A committee of the Leonardo Academy voted to create a set of general principles from "the bottom up," establishing task forces to gather different metrics and how they might apply to the standard. The task forces plan to meet in early November.

York said one troubling aspect of the Leonardo Academy's draft standard was that it is applied to all crops, whether fruits and vegetables, forestry, biofuels, corn and all the program crops.

TK: Perhaps further comment on this issue would be better served by waiting for more details from the produce specific effort. While the Leonardo Academy's effort is very broad, it appears some of the initial fears that its standard-setting work was not responsive to input from "conventional" producers have been addressed; the most recent news release from the Leonardo Academy indicates the sustainability standard is being rebuilt from the bottom up.