Oct. 22, 2014—Food companies, agribusinesses and retailers have recently been making commitments to shift their production practices to be more sustainable. What does that mean for and how will it impact agronomic production practices on the farm? 

Rod Snyder, President of Field to Market: The Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture, will present and lead a discussion about what his members are doing to meet sustainability goals and how agronomy professionals can be part of the process at the Grand Challenges, Great Solutions ASA, CSSA, SSSA International Annual Meetings in Long Beach, California, on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2014. The meeting is sponsored by the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and the Soil Science Society of America.

“The challenges we face with regard to global demands for food and agriculture production are complex,” says Snyder. “Tremendous collaboration across the supply chain is needed to address limited natural resources, increasingly volatile weather patterns, and a growing and more affluent global population. Major food companies are responding by making sustainability commitments and developing partnerships with farmers to help meet those goals.”

“Field to Market was formed to create a common vision to define, measure, and communicate about sustainability in U.S. agriculture,” says Snyder.

As part of the sustainability in agriculture movement, the International Certified Crop Adviser (ICCA) program will be adding a specialty certification in sustainability starting in 2015. ICCA is a program of the American Society of Agronomy, and the new certification is funded in part by the United Soybean Board. This specialty certification will require Certified Crop Advisers (CCA) to take additional training in best management practices for sustainability. Food companies and the agribusiness industry are pushing for additional training in sustainability; the CCA-sustainability specialty certification is one answer in this growing field.

For more information about Grand Challenges, Great Solutions, visit https://www.acsmeetings.org/. Media are invited to attend the conference. Pre-registration by Oct. 29, 2014, is required. Visit https://www.acsmeetings.org/newsroom for registration information. For more information about the ICCA program, visit https://www.certifiedcropadviser.org.

To speak with Mr. Snyder, contact Susan V. Fisk, 608-273-8091, sfisk@sciencesocieties.org to arrange an interview.