Sustainable ag standard faces hurdles

The Leonardo Academy logo.

Efforts led by Scientific Certification Systems (SCS) and Madison, Wis.-based Leonardo Academy to create a voluntary national standard for sustainable agriculture are running up against opposition.

Late in September 2008, the first meetings were held to discuss the creation of a voluntary national standard for sustainable agriculture to be certified by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). The September meetings are being touted as successful by organizers who speak in hopeful terms of “an open dialogue” with “a real diversity of views” that will result in “one standard so growers aren’t overwhelmed by different sustainability claims that retailers are asking them to meet.”

Some members of the sustainable agriculture community who are watching the process from the outside however, are not as positive about it, saying the process got off to “a rocky start” that could result in a standard that will be “forced downward on agricultural community.”

The goal is to create a standard incorporating “the best sustainability metrics out there” that can apply to all types of agriculture from dairy farms to flower growers, organic suppliers and possibly aquaculture, according to Amanda Raster, project manager for sustainability standards development at Leonardo Academy. Raster mentioned the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Organic label and the Fair Trade label as examples of certification systems being used to build their standard.

One of the certifications SCS pulled from was developed by Portland-based Food Alliance. The nonprofit’s executive director, Scott Exo, is not a fan of SCS’ process or the potential product that could be created. He worries that the cost of participating in the process could be out of reach of small farmers, food co-ops and retailers and result in a certification pushed from the top down.

“The way that this standard is being positioned by SCS and others is fundamentally different from the organic standard and seems to be designed to appeal to a much larger mass market,” Exo says. “It’s the seductive vision of universality and consistency that is being held up as the reason to do this. But the underlying premise is that very large companies will say ‘Yeah if you’re going to do business with us, you have to comply with this.’”

“I think that’s a red herring,” says Linda Brown, executive vice president at SCS. “We don’t want to see small growers intimidated by the process. Small growers will be heard. All points of view will be represented there. The idea that this will evolve as top-down standard is a legitimate fear but that’s all it is because it negates the process where those fears will be expressed.”