Quantifying Sustainability Using the Fieldprint® Calculator.

The world population is expected to reach 9 billion over the next 30 years and it is crucial that we develop alternative food production systems which support high productivity while curtailing depletion of natural resources. The Fieldprint® Calculator is a pioneering tool created by the Field to Market® organization to provide a quantitative index of sustainability given specific management practices. This project aims to establish the usefulness of the Fieldprint® Calculator to a diverse community, including farmers whom want to improve sustainability and/or meet sustainability standards required by the agriculture industry, and the scientific community interested in using it as an educational tool. We used the calculator to compare the performance and sustainability of cotton grown under conventional and conservation tillage practices, with and without cover crops, at three Texas A&M Agrilife Centers: Corpus Christi, Beeville, and Lubbock. The Fieldprint® calculator can be a great tool to demonstrate how management choices can impact sustainability, as well as to identify areas of improvement.