IMPLEMENTATION OF A NATIONAL INITATIVE FOR SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE (NISA)

• Sponsoring Institution: National Institute of Food and Agriculture
• Project Status: COMPLETE
• Funding Source: OTHER GRANTS
• Reporting Frequency: Annual
• Accession No.: 0231836
• Grant No.: 2012-38831-20336
• Cumulative Award Amt.: $9,999.00
• Proposal No.: 2012-03555
• Project Start Date: Sep 1, 2012
• Project End Date: Aug 31, 2014
• Grant Year: 2012
• Program Code: [FF-F]- IFPS, Admin. Discretionary & Reim. Extension

Recipient Organization
UNIV OF WISCONSIN
21 N PARK ST STE 6401
MADISON,WI 53715-1218

Performing Department
Horticulture

Non Technical Summary
Although there are many definitions of "sustainable agriculture," the one with the greatest potential for continued progress must be advanced by the food, feed, fiber, and fuel value chain - not directed by the consumer. NISA - the National Initiative for Sustainable Agriculture - has evolved from a generational commitment by American producers to manage their farms sustainably. NISA is born out of a desire among producers for a whole farm sustainability initiative that simplifies the current process of multiple checklists originating from retailers, food processors, and foreign governments. Farmers want to know that sustainable agriculture is not a test and that their progress to date will be credited. It's not a snapshot in time but rather a process of continuous improvement toward nationally recognized goals and outcomes that producers can work towards to advance their own goals of farm value, succession to future generations, and sustainability. NISA is designed to provide the agricultural community and value chain with a consistent and credible national framework for documenting the efforts and accomplishments of producers towards greater sustainability along a continuum through continuous effort and stepwise improvement. NISA's business model is to: (a) identify and communicate a set of sustainability outcomes and indicators; (b) collaborate with the value chain to establish consensus on the appropriateness of the outcomes and indicators; (c) establish nationally-consistent principles/criteria in a framework organization through which many stakeholder groups can seek recognition; and then (d) acknowledge emerging crop/livestock- and region-specific sustainability initiatives that meet the principles/criteria. NISA will offer such organizations educational and research support in designing new initiatives and a mechanism for confirming that they meet value chain expectations.

Animal Health Component

(N/A)

Research Effort Categories

Basic

(N/A)

Applied

(N/A)

Developmental

100%

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
606	1499	1070	10%
606	1499	3010	10%
606	1599	1070	10%
606	1599	3010	10%
606	3399	1070	10%
606	3399	3010	10%
606	3499	1070	10%
606	3499	3010	10%
606	3599	1070	10%
606	3599	3010	10%

Knowledge Area
606 - International Trade and Development;

Subject Of Investigation
3499 - Dairy cattle, general/other; 1499 - Vegetables, general/other; 1599 - Grain crops, general/other; 3599 - Swine, general/other; 3399 - Beef cattle, general/other;

Field Of Science
1070 - Ecology; 3010 - Economics;

Keywords

sustainability

Goals / Objectives
Through this funding we hope to implement the NISA business model with formal engagement across a number of US agricultural producer groups from commodity, specialty crop, and animal agriculture industries. To meet this goal, resources will be used to hire staff to facilitate the development of the producer group, generation of funds and hiring of the coordinator, identification and involvement of the advisors, and implementation of the communication, educational support, technical review, and research integration functions. We have identified Dr. Jeff Wyman, Emeritus Professor, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of Entomology, as the potential person in this staff position. Dr. Wyman has extensive experience through implementation of broad and diverse IPM programs on insects in vegetable crops that ultimately led to development of the Healthy Grown Potato program.

Project Methods
How do we get there First, NISA must construct the national framework and set of outcomes and indicators commonly held by producers and the value chain. There are successful models to learn from. For example, ISO 14000 certification provides internationally-consistent goals, outcomes, and indicators for environmental protection in agriculture and other industries. This status is obtained by verified implementation of standardized environmental actions that are known worldwide to produce desired outcomes. NISA is now adapting that model to more broadly address sustainability's environmental, social, and economic principles in agriculture (draft document available at http://nisa.cals.wisc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/NISA-desired-out comes-example-indicators-metrics-4-16-12.pdf). Key to this effort is involving producers from the beginning, and agribusiness organizations, NGOs, and other stakeholders from the value chain at the appropriate time. A draft of the NISA framework will be available soon. NISA's framework is designed to assure all parties that commodities and the information assessing their production systems are accurate and meet clearly defined sustainability expectations. Existing valuable tools (e.g. Keystone Field to Market's Fieldprint Calculator; the Stewardship Index for Specialty Crop metrics; The Sustainability Consortium's life cycle assessments; as well as commodity-specific sustainability tools in dairy, pork, potato, wine grapes, cranberry, etc.) have a place in the reporting protocols used to communicate information about sustainability to value chain customers. NISA's business model is designed to create a mechanism to integrate these tools into a whole-farm approach and leverage and promote them as broadly as possible to simplify communication of the sustainability accomplishments of American agriculture. NISA is being specifically structured to allow commodities to compare their approaches and tools; leverage each other's investments in future sustainability programs for specific commodities; create a credible and scientifically-sound set of mechanisms by which agriculture can fully address whole-farm sustainability; and objectively communicate the sustainability accomplishments, future goals, and plans for advancement. To bring this business model on-line, NISA is evaluating the actions, timeline, resources, challenges and tools that are needed to launch NISA's framework and this federation of crop/livestock- and region-specific sustainability initiatives. We need the input of informed cooperators from across an appropriately broad spectrum of stakeholders. These will include producers, advisors from the public and private sectors, academics, value chain participants, and others.

Progress 09/01/12 to 08/31/14

Outputs
Target Audience: The target audiences are: agricultural producers, agricultural associations, consumers, wholesalers, distributors and retailers in the food value chain, exporters, University Colleges of Agriculture, and government agencies. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? A. Raster, pursuing an MS in Horticulture is using the NISA framework to compare national assessment programs. S. Collier, post doc in Agronomy, gained training and professional development by assisting in incorporating dairy, beef, pork and poultry into the NISA program. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? NISA sustainability assessments for soybeans, potatoes, cranberries, sweet corn, green beans, mint and u-pick strawberries were analyzed using "Frontiers of Sustainability" to distribute practices on a sustainability continuum for each industry, identify key drivers and develop grower scorecards to allow individual growers to assess their performance and identify ways to improve. These results were incorporated into highlight reports and distributed to growers, industry associations the value chain and the consumers, to promote achievements. In-depth reports with complete analysis of producer responses were distributed to industry associations for internal use to determine ways to improve distributions on the sustainability continuum. Grower score cards were sent to individual participating producers. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? A business model and operational procedures were developed and approved for the National initiative for Sustainable Agriculture (NISA) at national meetings in Chicago (2012), Denver (2013) and Chicago (2014) with the goal of developing whole farm sustainability assessments to provide a vehicle for farmers to communicate their achievements to the value chain and consumers, using clear and consistent criteria anchored in research-based standards that are relevant to agricultural production. NISA is governed by a producer board with membership representing soybeans, rice, potatoes, processed vegetables, cranberries and livestock at state and national levels. The board meets monthly by teleconference and annually in person to develop and approve assessment protocols. Sustainability assessments have been completed on over 1.15 million acres in 7 states including potatoes (WI), soybeans (WI, IL, AK, VA), processed sweet corn ( WI, MN, IL, WA), processed green beans (WI, IL, MN, NY), cranberries (national), mint (WI), U-pick strawberries (WI). Assessments are in progress for beef (WI), pork (WI), rice (AK) field corn (KS) and small acreage specialty crops (WI). A "frontiers of sustainability" analysis has been developed and released that identifies key drivers of sustainability and enables industries to determine where producers lie on a continuum of sustainable practice adoption and allows individual growers to identify practices that lead to continual improvement. NISA is now reaching out to national, outcome-based sustainability programs to develop a tiered approach that would use both on-farm practices (NISA) and outcome algorithms (Field to Market) to generate a more accurate measure of agricultural sustainability. To complete the establishment of NISA as a national, producer-based federation, the producer board approved the establishment of a public-private partnership in 2014 to expand NISA nationally.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2012 Citation: Raster, AL, D Knuteson, J Wyman, A Gevens, R Groves, A Bussan, 2012, Benchmarking the state of sustainable agriculture practices among Wisconsin potato producers: a comparison of sustainability standards and matrics, Amer Soc Agronomy Abs, 212-218
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Frontiers of Sustainability, 2013: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301479714004423.