Accelerating Progress Toward a Sustainable Agriculture September 16, 2010

1. Accelerating Progress Toward a Sustainable AgricultureSeptember 16, 2010 Margaret Krome Policy Program Director, Michael Fields Agricultural Institute

2. Report: Drivers, Constraints • Markets • Policy • Research

3. Applying Familiar Principles of Sustainable Systems • Diversify strategies, stakeholder groups • Adapt to changing conditions – emerging issues, dynamic political landscape and budgets • Capture synergies between strategies of Markets, Policy and Research and between creating programs and building constituencies that help build more programs, better policies • Optimize resources – NGO capacity, funding, political support, media

4. Constraints • Entrenched special interests around status quo • Culture of some in conventional agriculture premised on binary, we/they thinking • Opacity for consumers about who/what IS sustainable • Diverse stakeholders, too many issues can create fractured messages, strain limited staff & resources • Tight agency budgets • Lack of litigation capacity

5. What’s gotten us this far? Assets: • Growing consumer support • Stakeholders of sustag programs who advocate for new programs, new policies • Converging interests among diverse stakeholders • Health care concerns – e.g., obesity, heart disease – and their linkage to food system • Corporate sustainable ag stakeholders’ investments in advancing sustag • A good story (farmers, consumers), media interest

6. What’s gotten us this far? Assets: • Programs that reward sustainability – e.g., CSP, • Programs that listen to and assemble stakeholders, e.g., SARE • $$ (gov’t, private) that supports NGOs, grassroots • Grassroots support base, including social media • Alliances (some that puncture stereotypes) • Top notch policy advocacy in Washington, D.C. • Elbow grease by NGOs – on authorizations, program implementation, appropriations

7. Some gaps impeding acceleration: • Grassroots capacity to optimize media interest • Litigation capacity • Steady funding – programs, NGOs • Research – sufficient, balanced funding for a comprehensive agenda • Underserved stakeholders engaged in leadership of triad: policy, marketing, research • Next generation of policy leaders

8. Translating to early ideas on Farm Bill agenda • Chart the future through comprehensive research (e.g., publicly funded work on seeds and breeds), outreach (e.g., strengthen Extension) • Subsidize sustainability goals unapologetically, for example: • Support green payments, enforce conservation compliance • Build markets – all scales • Funding for grants, loan programs • Transparency – direct markets, standards

9. Early ideas on Farm Bill : (cont’d) Subsidize sustainability’s goals (cont’d) • Expand organic research, conservation, assistance • Expand beginning farmer /rancher programs • Provide fair access to underserved stakeholders • Restructure commodity programs to support sustainable agriculture practices, systems • Provide for fair producer contracts • Press for balanced food safety regulations • Incorporate sustainable ag into nutrition title

10. Reframing National Agriculture PolicyBased on 4 Goals: • Satisfy human food, feed and fiber needs, and contribute to biofuel needs • Enhance environmental quality and the resource base • Sustain the economic viability of agriculture • Enhance the quality of life for farmers, farm workers and society as a whole Remember: sustainable agriculture is not an interest group.

11. Thank you.