SAF Wednesday E-Brief - 03/19/2008 (Plain Text Version)
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Deadline Nears for Committee Application for Sustainable Agriculture Standard
Floral industry members interested in helping develop the first national standard for sustainable agriculture have until April 7 to submit their applications to the Leonardo Academy, which is overseeing the process. A committee, made up of an estimated 40 "stakeholders," will be chosen by the Leonardo Academy to be the voting body for developing the standard. Scientific Certification Systems (SCS) got the process started last spring, when they submitted a draft standard to the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) to make it an ANSI-approved standard. Since that time, the Leonardo Academy has held several informational meetings for stakeholders — agriculturists, environmentalists and other interested parties — to explain the process for developing the standard. But the real work begins once the Standards Committee is chosen on April 11. The committee will be responsible for achieving consensus about what will ultimately be included in the standard. The standard is scheduled for completion in 2010. Peter Moran, CEO of the Society of American Florists, says SAF had been represented at each of the information sessions, the most recent of which was held Feb. 29 in Arlington, Va. Moran expressed some concern about floriculture having enough input on the committee. "With limited seats on the Standards Committee and many parts of agriculture participating, there will be challenges getting our voice heard." According to Michael Arny, president of Leonardo Academy, the academy will review all the applications (found here) and choose people based on the ANSI requirement for having a balanced committee. The committee's makeup must be balanced between stakeholders such as producers, users, environmentalists and people defined as "general interest," which includes researchers, educators and trade associations, among other categories. "The idea is that we want to have a balanced committee with a balanced number of members in each of those categories," Arny says. For those who aren't chosen to be on the Standards Committee, they can still be involved in the process as a member of a subcommittee, which will act as support to the Standards Committee. Arny says, for example, "If there's a particular type of crop that the Standards Committee would like to have addressed, they might have a subcommittee with people who are knowledgeable about that crop put together recommendations or options on how to address that particular crop." To learn more about proposed ANSI National Standard for Sustainable Agriculture and other facts and news regarding sustainable agriculture visit SAF's Sustainbility Research Page. --Kori Kamradt
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