There is still space available for the Sustainability in Action meeting coming up on Thursday, September 26 at the CSUMB City Center in Salinas. The workshop is being hosted by Western Growers, the Produce Marketing Association, Bayer CropScience, SISC, Sustainable Conservation, The Monterey County Sustainability Working Group and Measure to Improve. The event is intended to offer actionable information to enhance on-farm sustainability.
“I emphasize the word ‘action’ because it’s not one of those meetings where you come, and you sit, and you’re lectured to and you leave, and there’s maybe nothing that you can act on right away,” said Bayer’s North American Food Stakeholder Manager Jenny Maloney, “Everything that you will hear and learn at this meeting you’ll be able to act on immediately, whether you’re a grower, an input provider, a food processor, or really anywhere within the food chain.”
The event will feature a demonstration of a new online tool that will be coming soon from the Sustainability Index for Specialty Crops. A grower panel will highlight how sustainable practices have effectively been implemented on farming operations and will include personnel from Duda Family Farms, Rio Farms, and Lipman Family Farms. There will also be ‘speed solution’ presentations in the afternoon which will focus on topics related to reducing carbon emissions, as well as improving irrigation, fertilizer, and energy efficiency.
Maloney noted that the workshop will offer helpful information for individuals with varying levels of experience with sustainable farming techniques. “Anyone that would be interested in maybe starting a sustainability program in their operation. Maybe someone who has a sustainability program like this that wants to make it more robust; someone that’s maybe interested in learning how they can use buyer’s requests to support their own sustainability efforts.”
The full agenda and information on registration for the Sustainability in Action meeting is available online.
Listen to Maloney’s interview below.
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