IPM Institute Announces Expanded Partnership with the Food Alliance
The IPM Institute has joined
with the Food Alliance to support a new effort to provide customized
audits and sustainability consulting services to leading food processors,
manufacturers, and food service companies. The Food Alliance is well
known for its signature certification program for environmentally friendly
and socially responsible agricultural practices.
Deborah
Kane, Food Alliance’s executive director, said, “We’re currently
working with a growing number of food companies, helping them craft
customized certification programs or generally implement sustainability
principles in their product sourcing. To augment the services we already
provide, Food Alliance has teamed with the IPM Institute. Together, Food
Alliance and the IPM Institute have much to offer a food industry
struggling to make sense of sustainable agriculture and their role in
supporting it.”
The
IPM Institute of North America, Inc. (www.ipminstitute.org) is a
non-profit organization working to increase adoption of IPM in agriculture
and communities. The Institute develops unique tools to help users
assess and improve their IPM programs. The Institute also manages
certification programs in the community arena, including schools and
landscape maintenance services.
Food
Alliance
and the IPM Institute have a
long history of successfully working with one another. In fact, Institute
staff helped Food Alliance develop its first grower assessment tool for
apples grown in the Pacific
Northwest.
Since then, the partners have collaborated on more than 40 crop specific
assessment tools. Food Alliance
certification tools measure, among other things, grower performance in
soil and water conservation and Integrated Pest Management (IPM). IPM
is a common sense approach to managing pests that strives to avoid pest
problems by relying on long-term, non-chemical methods. IPM allows
growers to maintain excellent quality and yields while using an average of
50% less pesticides than conventional growers.
Tom
Green, the IPM Institute’s director, said, “Our growing partnership
with Food Alliance means that clients can tap not only the Institute’s
wide ranging technical expertise, but also the real life experience of one
of the nation’s leading certification organizations. Clients will also
benefit from access to the Institute’s various advisors and extensive
network as well as Food Alliance’s respected Stewardship Council.”
The
IPM Institute and Food Alliance respectively have consulted with a diverse
set of clients including USDA, USEPA, Whole Foods Market, Clif Bar Inc.,
and the Canola Council of Canada, among others.
Industry
inquiries regarding consulting and certification services should be
directed to Deborah Kane at Food Alliance or Tom Green at the IPM
Institute.
