Industry collaborations focus on long-term sustainability

Beyond Buzzwords

Sustainability: every industry talks about it, but how many have taken steps to quantify it? Perhaps the biggest barrier to measurement starts with semantics. In the world of agriculture, the word sustainability has come to mean different things to different people. Often, discussions around the subject focus on practices farmers are using to produce their crops. Consumers tend to use terms like “organic,” “natural,” “free range,” and “local” to describe what they mean by sustainability.

When farmers are asked about sustainability, they tend to focus on the connection between maintaining the viability of their operations and caring for the land and environment. For them, to be sustainable means to be able to farm the land successfully, year after year.  In order to remain successful, they must preserve the health of their soils and the quality of the water surrounding their fields. More than any industry, farmers are completely dependent upon Mother Nature, healthy soils, and natural resources.

This distance between consumer perception and farmer practices can be confusing for an outsider looking to better understand agriculture. Enter Field to Market, an organization founded in 2006 to help farmers and the food industry work together toward an evolved understanding of sustainability, one driven by data and measurement of outcomes at the field level.

More Data, More Information, Better Decisions

Rod Snyder, Field to Market’s President since 2014, prefers to move the discussion away from a checklist of practices and toward what he calls “sustainable outcomes.” His organization has developed a series of metrics to help farmers evaluate eight types of environmental health indicators: biodiversity, energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, irrigated water use, land use, soil carbon, soil conservation, and water quality.

“Farmers have a long history of conservation,” said Snyder. “But it can be challenging to tell that story. At Field to Market, we are trying to use metrics and data to help them do that."

Local Knowledge Combined with National Resources

Snyder and his team also believe farmers are the most knowledgeable about their own fields and the local environment. Field to Market offers farmers a method for benchmarking their operations at the field level, as well as national and state averages for the environmental indicators mentioned earlier. Once they have established their individual benchmarks, farmers can enhance their understanding of how sustainability works on their operations, and work toward improving their performance.

Field to Market Vice President Betsy Hickman pointed out that improvement is among their most important messages and goals. “The purpose of our platform is to catalyze continuous improvement,” said Hickman. “We offer farmers and food companies in the supply chain a means to show how U.S. agriculture remains dedicated to protecting our water, air, soil, and habitat. And our method is grounded in science and data-driven."

Four Decades of Continuous Improvement

Every four years, Field to Market releases a National Indicators Report. The picture painted by the 2012 and 2016 reports is one of continuous improvement. Over the past 40 years, two areas stand out. The first is greenhouse gas emissions per bushel of production, an area where modern agriculture has contributed to tremendous reductions.

These emissions reductions come from a combination of farm practices and new technologies.  For example, precision equipment that uses GPS guidance technology helps eliminate overlap when planting, spraying, and harvesting. This means fewer trips across the field in the tractor, which means less diesel fuel used.  It also means more precise application of nutrients and other inputs to help drive a more sustainable approach to crop production.  Another factor is improved farm techniques that allow for less tillage. This is because tillage (plowing or otherwise disturbing the soil) releases carbon into the atmosphere, contributes to erosion, and requires significant fuel and energy.

Still Work to Be Done

Snyder cautions that while these are positive trends, there is still room to improve. Field to Market realizes farmers are focused on running sustainable operations, and remains dedicated to offering them what they need to do so.

“We now think about farming by the foot, and we have all this data that provides granular information about farm operations,” he said. “Now it’s about scale of adoption. We believe the next wave of innovation will help us make sure the sustainability journey continues forward.”

With several regions across the nation focused on reducing nutrient runoff into local waterways, modern agriculture and organizations like Field to Market are coming together to focus on water quality. Benchmarking data and tracking improvement allows Field to Market to help farmers continue working on this, while also providing a quantifiable means of tracking the progress that is being made.

This collaboration between farmers, farm industry groups, food companies, and environmental advocacy groups is part of a larger, positive trend in agriculture. Multi-stakeholder organizations can pool resources as they seek to solve common problems that affect everyone. This is good news for the planet, for consumers, and for farmers.