Nov 3, 2008

Standards Committee Elects Officers, Calls for ApplicationsSource: Leonardo Academy

The Standards Committee, charged with spearheading the process to develop a national standard for sustainable agriculture, recently announced its officer selections:

• Marty Matlock – Standards Committee Chairman
• Ronald Moore – Standards Committee Vice-Chairman
• Will Healy – Standards Committee Secretary
• Grace Gershuny – Standards Committee Vice-Secretary

These committee members will assume key leadership roles as the committee moves forward with its industry-impacting task.

In other news, the Leonardo Academy, which is leading the standard development process, also announced a call for applications for three open seats on the Standards Committee’s User Interest category. Anyone who uses agricultural products – including retailers and restaurants, food service companies, product handles, processors, distributors and manufacturers – and has an interest in sustainable agriculture is encouraged to apply.

The current Standards Committee consists of a diverse, experienced membership representing a wide range of perspectives from across all areas of agriculture. Representatives of conventional agriculture, organic agriculture, food retailers, agricultural processors, environmental institutions, labor organizations, industry trade associations, as well as government agencies, academics, regulators and certifiers came together at the committee’s first meeting in September to discuss the key issues likely to dominate the discussions in the process ahead.

At that meeting, the committee also decided to create six task groups that will work together over the next several months to define the need for and vision of the sustainability standard, to outline outreach opportunities to engage involvement from additional stakeholders, and to gather supplementary data and resources for guiding the work ahead. In addition, the committee also voted to set aside the Draft Standard for Trial Use, published by Scientific Certification Systems (SCS) and use it as one of several reference documents expected to be used in the development process.