A Outcomes-Based Approach to Developing Sustainable Intensification Metrics for Commodity Crops.

In recent years, a multi-stakeholder approach to defining, measuring and advancing sustainability of commodity crops in the US has emerged with a set of evolving quantitative metrics. These metrics share key characteristics of being focused on environmental outcomes and being intensity based; in this regard, they respond to both changes in the environmental variable being measured as well as to changes in crop yield.  This presentation will explore progress to date and share lessons learned from implementing Field to Market’s intensification-focused sustainability metrics on data from over 1200 individual farmers, on close to 3 million acres of cropland annually.

The metrics were developed individually and are simulated together through a web interface to provide field-level feedback on energy use efficiency, land use efficiency, water use efficiency, greenhouse gas emissions, water quality, soil carbon and soil erosion. As part of a multi-stakeholder membership organization, the metrics program was developed by consensus agreement across five sectors of the commodity crop supply chain: food and retail companies, agribusinesses, conservation groups, grower groups and government and university partners. The program has been in a piloting and educational phase since 2009, exploring the utility of the metrics for farmers and their trusted advisors, as well as the potential to use metric results for reporting in to the supply chain on environmental performance and progress towards improvement in sustainability outcomes. Close collaboration with the scientific community is critical to the long term success of the program in establishing a standard for sustainable production and supporting intensification of crop production required for meeting food security goals. The Field to Market example illustrates both the potential for and challenges of broad adoption of consistent environmental metrics in driving practice changes aimed at continuous improvement in the productivity and sustainability of crop production.