The Sustainable Agriculture Practice Standard, published by Scientific Certification Systems, is being developed in response to rising interest in practicing, defining, standardizing, and certifying sustainable agriculture. Establishing a national standard for

sustainable agriculture practices has the opportunity to serve many purposes, including:

-        Defining sustainability practices and indicators throughout the  supply chain on a life-cycle basis

-        Distinguishing best practices in crop production and handling

-        Guiding producers and handlers through stages of incremental  improvement

-        Providing a common set of metrics to gauge sustainability progress-whether in a private supply chain, an industry sector, or on a state/regional/national scale

-        Setting a reference benchmark for private sustainability effort

The draft standard serves as a starting point from which stakeholder

  discussions can ensue and is intended to stimulate dialogue on key

  issues, such as the multiple interpretations of sustainability as it

  applies to agriculture. All stakeholders--including producers, users

  of the standard, agricultural institutions, government

  representatives, environmentalists, labor groups, consumer groups and

  other interested parties--have a role to play in shaping the final

  standard, working within the open consensus process.

Leonardo Academy is reaching out to as many stakeholders as

possible to encourage their participation in the standard development

process and is currently accepting applications to participate on the

Standards Committee, which will ultimately decide what is in the final

standard that will be submitted for approval as an American National Standard.

Applications are due by Friday, May 23, 2008, with Standards Committee

selection by Monday, June 16th, 2008. The committee application form can be found at
http://www.leonardoacademy.org/Projects/SustainAgStdDevelopment.htm.

You can also download the draft standard from this webpage.
 

To learn more about the Sustainable Agriculture Practice Draft

Standard for Trial Use, please visit:

http://www.leonardoacademy.org/Projects/SustainAgStdDevelopment.htm,

or contact Leonardo Academy at Development-SCS-1@leonardoacademy.org
or(608) 280-0255.