FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 25, 2003
Supermarketguru.com
Sustainable Produce: What The Label Means
by Kevin Coupe
Perhaps you¹ve been seeing the label "sustainable produce" on the fruits and
vegetables you¹ve been picking up at your local grocery store. If so, you
may be wondering exactly what sustainable agriculture is, and how it differs, say, from "organic" produce.
According to Food Alliance, an Oregon-based non-profit coalition of farmers, consumers, scientists, grocers, processors, distributors, farm
worker representatives and environmentalists, sustainable agriculture is a
system that emphasizes protecting and enhancing natural resources, using
alternatives to pesticides, and caring for the health and well being of farm
workers and rural communities.
We spoke with Scott Exo, Northwest Program Director for Food Alliance,
and he told us that "sustainable produce" is not the same thing as
"organic," and that producers who practice sustainable agriculture actually
have to meet a wide range of criteria in order to be certified by an
organization like his.
For example, such a producer must:
* use a range of natural pest controls, such as beneficial insects, careful weather monitoring and scouting;
* use the least toxic pesticides when natural methods don't work;
* improve soil by natural methods, such as crop rotation and cover crops;
* protect clean drinking water and fish habitat by providing buffer zones
in riparian areas;
* provide wildlife habitat and encouraging residency by growing some year
round vegetative cover for shelter and food;
* take into consideration quality of life issues for their farm workers
and their communities when making daily farm management decisions;
* and continually improve their farming practices to make them more environmentally sound, socially just and economically viable.
In fact, not every producer that gets a "sustainable agriculture"
certification is organic; for example, Exo said, "there are synthetic
pesticides and fertilizers that we feel are allowable" because there are no
organic or natural options. That would eliminate any possibility of organic certification, he said, but falls within the purview of
sustainable.
