Field to Market®, the Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture, has just launched a new agricultural supply chain program for commodity crops.
The Field to Market metrics and benchmarks developed through a multi-stakeholder process over the past several years will now become an important platform for measuring, promoting and reporting on continuous improvement in corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, rice, potatoes and other crops related to seven sustainability indicators: land use, soil conservation, soil carbon, irrigated water use, water quality, energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.
The new program, which was approved at the organization’s recent biannual board meeting in Fayetteville, Arkansas, will focus on benchmarking current sustainability outcomes, catalyzing continuous improvement at the field and landscape level, and enabling supply chain sourcing claims.
“The announcement signals a major commitment among members to address supply chain sustainability in a manner that is transparent, grounded in science, focused on outcomes and open to a full range of technology choices while considering productivity, environmental quality and human well-being,” said Rod Snyder, president of Field to Market.
The membership of Field to Market includes a who’s who of agricultural organizations and agribusinesses, as well as food companies and environmental groups. Among those members are American Farm Bureau Federation, Bayer CropScience, BASF, DuPont Pioneer, John Deere, and the National Corn Growers Association.