Field to Market®: The Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture and The Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy® announced a new partnership that seeks to harmonize on-farm sustainability metrics and drive greater collaboration between the two organizations. The collaboration will benefit crop producers, dairy farmers and the entire agricultural supply chain by creating a more consistent approach for measuring and advancing continuous improvement in the sustainability of dairy feed production.
In a memorandum of understanding, the Innovation Center and Field to Market have agreed to:
- Harmonize metrics to assess the sustainability of feed production
To align metrics, both organizations will work together to identify opportunities for synchronization, coordination, piloting and development. By harmonizing approaches, this partnership intends to ease reporting requirements across industry and reduce duplication in efforts associated with the development and implementation of metrics to assess feed sustainability. - Maximize the interoperability between tools
Both organizations will seek to maximize interoperability between Field to Market’s Fieldprint® Calculator and the Innovation Center’s Farm Smart™ tools. Both organizations will work together to analyze existing capabilities and infrastructure to identify opportunities for integration and piloting at the field level, providing greater efficiency and value to producers and reducing unnecessary duplication of efforts. - Advance scientific research and communication
Where knowledge gaps exist that affect both dairy consumption and feed production, both organizations will collaborate on scientific research, product development and communication. - Jointly convene the supply chain to tackle sustainability challenges
In November 2015, Field to Market and the Innovation Center will host a joint conference to explore common challenges across the supply chain and develop shared solutions to advance sustainable agriculture.