Field to Market: The Keystone Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture
Press Release, "Diverse Group Releases First-of-its-Kind Report Measuring Agriculture Sustainabililty," January 12, 2009
Environmental Resource Indicators for Measuring Outcomes of On-Farm Agricultural Production in the United States, First Report, January 2009
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Introduction
The Keystone Center convened a steering committee of people representing interests from growers, conservation organizations, and companies throughout the agriculture and food supply chain in September 2006 to determine if a further dialogue would be helpful in defining and motivating more sustainable production and supporting and encouraging implementation of more sustainable measures. The premise of the effort is to encourage broad grower involvement while at the same time creating value to growers, consumers, and society in general.
The primary objectives of the effort are:
- To identify criteria for sustainable agriculture that are open to a diversity of technologies; and
- To support the implementation of production systems that lead to broad performance improvements against these criteria.
As an initial step, the group defined sustainable agriculture as meeting the needs of the present while improving the ability of future generations to meet their own needs by focusing on these specific, critical outcomes:
- Increasing productivity to meet future nutritional needs while decreasing impacts on the environment, including water, soil, habitat, air quality and climate emissions, and land use.
- Improving human health through access to safe, nutritious food.
- Improving the social and economic well-being of agricultural communities.
This group is leading a broad based conversation to define specific actions that can have the greatest impact on sustainable agriculture by:
- Focusing on outcomes and results.
- Allowing growers to find the best ways to achieve results through a full range of agricultural technology choices.
- Applying information at the grower-by-grower level in support of the larger, overarching goal of shifting the entire sustainability curve.
- Driving change where the opportunity is greatest, throughout conventional agriculture.
- Providing economic rewards that encourage growers and the value chain to adopt and leverage systems that lead to performance improvement.
- Serving as a solutions provider for companies throughout the supply chain who are endeavoring to both report and improve their sustainability footprint from farm to table.
- Creating pull through the production system all the way to the consumer.
- Using peer-reviewed science to identify goals and measure impacts and results.
To view the group’s full set of foundational principles, please click here.
Participants
To ensure the effort is credible and gaining broad enrollment, it involves participants from conservation organizations, academia and research organizations, grower interests, retail companies, and companies throughout the agricultural supply chain.
Entities participating in the initiative include:
- American Farm Bureau Federation
- American Soybean Association
- Bayer CropScience
- Bunge
- Cargill
- ConAgra Foods
- Conservation International
- Cotton Incorporated
- DuPont
- Fleishman-Hillard
- General Mills
- Grocery Manufacturers of America
- John Deere
- Kellog Company
- Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences
- Mars, Incorporated
- Monsanto Company
- National Association of Conservation Districts
- National Association of Wheat Growers
- National Corn Growers Association
- National Cotton Council of America
- National Potato Council
- The Coca-Cola Company
- The Fertilizer Institute
- The Nature Conservancy
- Syngenta
- United Soybean Board
- World Wildlife Fund – US
Additional interests include academic expertise, other commodities, growers, and additional food companies and retail interests.
Outcomes of the Effort
The key outcomes of the process will include a credible, broad-based system for identifying and assessing sustainable agricultural practices in accordance with the definition provided above. This system will include the following elements:
- Better informed decision-making and policies throughout the agricultural supply chain.
- A set of clearly-defined key impact areas based on outcomes.
- Science-based mechanisms for assessing baselines and progress against the key impact areas.
- A distinct identity used by participating entities that supports the advancement of more sustainable production agriculture.
- Documented improved performance over time.
- A single platform that entities throughout the supply chain can use in their sustainability efforts.
Documents
Contact Information
For further information about this initiative, please contact Sarah Alexander at 970-513-5846 or Julie Shapiro at 970-513-5830.
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