Ag groups resign from sustainability standard task force

Agricultural representatives from several major agricultural organizations have withdrawn from the Leonardo Academy’s efforts to develop a sustainable agriculture standard. These organizations included voting members and other allied groups, associations and companies which supported the decision to withdraw from the task force.
The resigning members “cited systemic limitations and chronic anti-agriculture biases inherent in the writing Committee structure set up for this initiative” A letter addressed to Michael Arny, Leonardo Academy president, was signed by 10 national agricultural-organization voting members on the nearly 60-member committee, and endorsed by 46 other agricultural organizations. The Leonardo Academy and its principal financial sponsor, Scientific Certification Systems, had undertaken an effort in 2007 to develop a draft national standard for sustainable agriculture under a consensus-based process governed by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).
Ron Moore, a board member of the American Soybean Association and acting chair of the Leonardo Academy’s standard committee said “This decision was not made easily for it means walking away from nearly two years of investment in active Leonardo Committee membership, subcommittee leadership and writing group participation. However, farmers will embrace a standard for sustainability only if they are allowed fair representation in its development. Unfortunately, mainstream agriculture has been given a decidedly minor voice in a Leonardo Academy process dominated by others. We will pursue, in another venue, the development and implementation of a valid approach to agricultural sustainability.”