Developing Indicators for Sustainable Agriculture Standards

If the sustainability of our agri-food systems is important, then how can we best determine what approaches most effectively deliver a productive outcome that is environmentally and socially balanced?

The agriculture industry is intrinsically linked to and dependent on healthy natural systems; clean and abundant water, healthy soil and ideal temperatures. However, the face of a more variable and unpredictable climate, it is imperative that farming practices integrate both mitigative and adaptive measures that safeguard the natural environment, improve yields and produce safer food over the long term. Sustainability standards and their associated indicators can help to guide the agriculture industry toward more sustainable practices, innovations and technologies. This in turn can have positive implications for the environment, food safety and farmers’ returns on investment.

This webinar provided an overview of how we are understanding the sustainable agriculture standards being used worldwide. It gave a picture of how metrics can be developed to meet the needs of different stakeholders while focusing improving social, economic and environmental indicators as the ultimate objective. Finally this webinar showed how such measurements and standards have been implemented and how they have contributed to sustainability in a practical way. 

This hour-long webinar took place on Thursday March 30, 2017 at 10:00 a.m Central Time.

Click here to view a recording of the webinar.

Registrants will receive updated information from COSA about their future webinars.

About the presenter:

Daniele Giovannucci is the President of the Committee on Sustainability Assessment and leads the network of global partnerships that are a hallmark of its participatory learning process for improving sustainability practices.
 
His enthusiasm for a pragmatic approach to research and development stems from15 years as a business executive in food-related firms. Later, as Senior Consultant to the World Bank (Markets and Agribusiness Thematic Team), he helped evolve the design of sustainability components for many rural development and agribusiness projects for nearly a decade. He has developed or managed projects in more than 30 countries since he began working on the sustainability issues of developing nations in 1992.
 
Over the last 15 years, Daniele has led or contributed to the strategies of a number of major development institutions and several governments. He led the global teams formulating the strategic input on Food and Agriculture for the United Nations Division for Sustainable Development and for the landmark Rio+20 Earth Summit launch of the UN’s SD-21 Report.