1 / 22

The Keystone Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture

The Keystone Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture. What is Field to Market?. A collaborative stakeholder group P roducers, agribusinesses, food and retail companies, conservation associations, universities, and NRCS

milos
Download Presentation

The Keystone Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. The Keystone Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture

  2. What is Field to Market? • A collaborative stakeholder group • Producers, agribusinesses, food and retail companies, conservation associations, universities, and NRCS • Identifying supply chain strategies to define, measure, and promote continuous improvement for agriculture • Addressing the challenge of increasing demand and limited resources • Developing and piloting outcomes-based, science-based metrics and tools • Fieldprint Calculator, a free, online tool to help growers analyze their operations and help the supply chain explain how food is produced • National Report on environmental and socioeconomic trends over time for U.S. commodity crops

  3. Field to Market Membership

  4. How We Define Sustainable Agriculture • Meeting the needs of the present while improving the ability of future generations to meet their own needs • Increasing productivity to meet future food and fiber demands • Improving the environment • Improving human health • Improving the social and economic well-being of agricultural communities

  5. Big Ideas • Engage the full supply chain • Include producers • Focus on commodities crops • Unique supply chains and traceability issues • Develop science- and outcomes-based measures • Identify the key indicators for sustainability • Measure broad-scale trends and field-scale outcomes • Scale and implement metrics for sustainability programs

  6. Deliverables: What We Are Doing Public data and models Collaboratively developed Outcomes based

  7. The Fieldprint Calculator: Measuring Field Level Outcomes and Identifying Opportunities for Improvement 7

  8. What is the Fieldprint Calculator? • An online education tool for row crop farmers that indexes their agronomics and practices to a fieldprint • Helps growers evaluate their farming decisions and compare their sustainability performance • In the areas of: • Land use • Soil conservation • Soil carbon • Water use • Energy use • Greenhouse gas emissions • Water Quality and Biodiversity in development • Against: • Their own fields • Their own performance over time • County, state and national averages

  9. Fieldprint Calculator Start Page 9

  10. Fieldprint Calculator Summary Page 10

  11. Field to Market Calculator Pilot Projects • Demonstrate use of calculator on the ground to test utility at the grower level and through the supply chain • Currently 6 member-led pilots engaging farmers across geographies, crops, and supply chains • Over approximately 300 farmers engaged

  12. Pilot Feedback “I’ll tell you, I wish I had this tool when I first started my position here at the District.  It’s a great way to get to know growers and local operations and to get a conversation started.  I’m making more in-roads with the fieldprinting project, than I have with much of the previous outreach I’ve done.  If it’s used as nothing more than an outreach tool, it’s a winner.” – Jared Foster, Van Buren Conservation District/Paw-Paw pilot

  13. National Indicators Report:The Sustainability Story of U.S. Agriculture

  14. Report Objectives • Analyze trends over time for environmental and socioeconomic sustainability indicators • Establish a baseline against which to measure future improvements • Create enabling conditions for an informed, multi-stakeholder discussion of sustainability • Advance an outcomes-based, science-based approach • Provide broad-scale context for more local efforts

  15. National Indicators Report

  16. 2012 Indicators Report

  17. Summary Results: Environmental Indicators • Resource use/impact per unit of production (“efficiency”) • Improvement for all six crops on all five environmental indicators • Driven in part by improvements in yield • Helps track resource uses vs. production/demand concerns • Total resource use/impact • Variability across crops and indicators (increases, decreases) • Driven in part by overall increases or decreases in production

  18. Summary Results: Socioeconomic Indicators • Improvements (decreases) in debt to asset ratio, fatalities, and non-fatality injuries • Decreases in labor hours per unit production • Increase in agriculture’s contribution to national GDP • Fluctuation in returns over variable costs, with increases (improvements) in recent years

  19. Sample Results:Resources per bushel, Soybeans

  20. A Closer LookSoybean Results: Soil Erosion TOTAL PER ACRE PER BUSHEL • Total soil erosion decreased over most of the study period, but has increased more recently (similar for corn) • Per acre soil erosion decreased during first half of study period, then leveled off (similar for corn, cotton, and wheat)

  21. IN SUMMARYU.S. Producers Have a Great Story to Tell… • Efficiency gains over time, along with increased production • Improvements on a number of economic and social indicators …As well as opportunities for continued improvement • Continued challenges ahead for meeting increased demand within limits of natural resources and social and economic needs • With the collaboration of U.S. farmers, tools and metrics are emerging to help track and communicate progress and identify opportunities for continued improvement

  22. For More Information • www.fieldtomarket.org • National Report, Calculator, and more! • Fred Luckey, Chairman • (314) 409-7822;fred.luckey@fieldtomarket.org • Julie Shapiro, Facilitator • (970) 513-5830; jshapiro@keystone.org 22

More Related