By Sandy Stuttgen
The Wisconsin pork and beef industries are being proactive in documenting the sustainability of their producers while ensuring grower engagement in the process. These industries partnered with the National Initiative for Sustainable Agriculture to develop and implement a baseline sustainability assessment on farm level practices for local beef and pork producers.
The University of WI-Extension worked closely with the Wisconsin Pork Producers and the Wisconsin Cattleman’s Association on this 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. This helps in the effort for valid documentation, continual improvement, and helps promote and communicate advancements in sustainable practices used on their local production systems.
The assessment used an entry level, baseline approach where researchers and producers determined question needs. In total, 90 producers filled out the assessment, with 65 beef operations assessed and 18 pork operations assessed.
These were family operations, with an average of 2 generations actively working on the farm, and on average these operations had been in business for 27 years.
Highlighted Results: The data shown demonstrates the percentage of growers using practices which encourage sustainable agricultural advancements.
Source:uwex.edu