LINCOLN, NEB. — The Nebraska Corn Board has joined Field to Market: The Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture. The organization is a leading multi-stakeholder initiative that is working to unite the agricultural supply chain in defining, measuring and advancing the sustainability of food, fiber and fuel production in the United States.
Representing all facets of the U.S. agricultural supply chain, Field to Market provides an unparalleled platform that helps the food and agricultural supply chain benchmark sustainability performance, catalyze continuous improvement and enable supply chain sustainability claims.
“Joining Field to Market as a member gives us as corn farmers a seat at the table when it comes to discussions around sustainability,” said Brandon Hunnicutt, a farmer from Giltner and a director on the Nebraska Corn Board. “Whether or not we use the term “sustainable”, farmers are continuously looking to improve how they produce crops in ways that are both economical and conserve the natural resources that we rely on.”
Field to Market engages in broad communication and collaboration with stakeholders to ensure a coordinated, outcomes-based approach to sustainable agriculture that is grounded in science. By providing useful measurement tools and resources, Field to Market helps growers and the supply chain track and promote continuous improvement at the field and landscape levels.
As an active member in Field to Market, the Nebraska Corn Board will work together with grower organizations, academia, conservation groups, public sector partners and leading companies to help to catalyze opportunities for continuous improvement in productivity, environmental quality and human well-being across the agricultural value chain.
In support of Field to Market’s vision to catalyze continuous improvement in commodity crop production, the Nebraska Corn Board is partnering with Nebraska Extension to hold a series of free workshops that will introduce producers to Field to Market’s Fieldprint Calculator tool. Using producer data on farming practices and production, this tool quantifies several environmental metrics that may impact the profitability of a field, while also allowing producers to confidentially compare their field to national, state, and local averages for these metrics.
“Producers are looking for tools to help them expose areas of potential inefficiencies in their current production practices,” said Boone McAfee, Nebraska Corn Board’s director of research. “We strongly encourage producer attendance at these workshops to learn how the Fieldprint Calculator can be used to identify opportunities to improve efficiency and sustainability on their farms.”
For more information on these workshops, visit www.cropwatch.unl.edu, or click here to see the program flyer. For more information on Field to Market, visit www.fieldtomarket.org.