There is a new partnership starting between the National Initiative for Sustainable Agriculture (NISA) and local beef and pork producers looking to document, promote and communicate advancements in sustainable practices used on their local production systems. NISA is working with the Wisconsin Pork Producers and the Wisconsin Cattleman’s Association on a groundbreaking program to measure on-farm sustainability success, encourage continual improvements and help farmers, food buyers and consumers learn about sustainability of Wisconsin beef and pork operations.
The assessment process has been developed jointly by University of Wisconsin – Extension animal scientists and specialists and local producers and their representative associations. NISA has developed this simple process to measure on – farm sustainability which allows producers to participate in establishing the assessments and gives them ownership and a vital role in documenting their sustainability and working toward continual improvement.
This program is designed for producers and needs your support! This fall, we will launch the NISA assessment program to work directly with cattlemen and pork producers to measure the sustainability of practices used on the farm and establish baselines. This assessment process is voluntary, quick and easy and asks only practice based questions – it does not ask specifics on amounts or details.
The assessments are non-threatening and could be used on your own farms to promote sustainability efforts. The data is coded to protect individual privacy and will be held by your associations. Once a large enough proportion of the industry is engaged, NISA will use aggregate data and work with producers and their organizations to identify key sustainability drivers and develop communication pieces which growers and the associations can use to promote advances that have already been made. The assessment questionnaires are customized for each commodity and area and recognize local and regional production differences.
This is a process that has a proven success record in working with farmers. In just over 18 months, NISA (http://nisa.cals.wisc.edu/) has demonstrated the usefulness of this approach by working with over 1,000-farmers, assessing 1.2-million acres across 11 cropping systems. The results give farm groups, food chains, and consumer’s practical ideas for voluntary improvements which show the commitment that producers have to the environment and society.
You can be a part of this process. The survey takes between 10-30 minutes of your time to complete. The survey begins with a ‘whole farm’ portion and then concludes with animal specific portions, in which you choose to participate in depending on which you raise, beef, pork or dairy. At this time, the survey includes only beef and pork components. Follow the link to participate in the online survey:Online Assessment
Source:uwex.edu