by John Berry, Extension Educator, Lehigh County
Most farmers are on the lookout for ways to generate more
net revenue. The question is something close to “What can we do to utilize our
resources to their best advantage?” Many opportunities exist, but in order to be
feasible they must match the values of the farm family. One common method is
the move to identify farm crops as being sustainable. The challenge is how to
verify claims and meet the documentation requirements to satisfy buyers. There
are several competing verification systems in place that are trying to address
this very concern. Some are driven by a singular philosophical mission and
others are more inclusive of all those businesses along the chain from farm to
fork.
As an example, individual farm operations within the
specialty crop supply chain are experiencing increasing demands to demonstrate
"sustainability" to their customers. These demands have resulted in a
growing number of certification and/or supplier education programs and thus the
potential for redundant or even conflicting requirements. Most of these
programs focus on a niche market, a limited set of crops, and/or a specific
link in the supply chain, and thus are not designed to provide the specialty
crops industry as a whole with a comprehensive system for measuring sustainable
performance. However, The Stewardship
Index aims to provide such a system.
The StewardshipIndex for Specialty Crops project is a multi-stakeholder initiative
developing a system for measuring sustainable performance throughout the
specialty crop supply chain. The project offers a suite of outcomes-based
metrics to enable operators at any point along the supply chain to benchmark,
compare, and communicate their own performance. The Stewardship Index does not
seek to provide standards, but instead provides a yardstick for measuring
sustainable outcomes. In the future, the project may also provide tools and
resources to help specialty crop companies advance sustainability goals.
For this project "specialty crops" is defined
broadly to include fruits, vegetables, nuts, and horticulture. The founding
members of the project regard sustainability as an ongoing process to advance
environmental, socially responsible, and economic values. The project does not
aim to identify a level of performance that is "sustainable," but
instead to provide measures to help all participants implement sustainable
values.
Quantitative sustainability metrics, developed
collaboratively, can offer significant benefits to specialty crop industry
participants, and the eventual consumer. As envisioned, this project will:
·
Help operations across the supply chain (farms,
distributors, processors, retailers, etc) identify opportunities for increasing
efficiency and reducing costs;
·
Provide a standardized system for measuring
performance, thus reducing the potential for duplicate monitoring and
reporting systems;
·
Allow individual operators to engage in the
sustainability journey starting at (and regardless of) their current level of
performance;
·
Address the unique needs of the specialty crop
industry while demonstrably improving environmental and social impacts;
·
Enable verifiable marketing claims backed by
measurable performance data;
·
Help reduce the likelihood of future industry
regulation by solving problems and demonstrating improved performance to
regulators.
