Corn Commentary

Defining Sustainability

How many ways can you define sustainability? What does it mean to you? I’m beginning to think the list is endless. During a conference I attended this week I heard three very prominent people offer their definition during a round table discussion. This was at the Alltech Symposium where the theme was The Sustainability Principle. The panelists at this session each took a turn answering the question, “How do you define sustainability? There were also asked to put that in terms of how the audience should be interested in it. Anyone who is in agriculture, including corn growers, needs to know how people are looking at this issue since it will be important as new legislation and regulations come about as a result of it.

Our first panelist to tackle this question was Lutz Goedde, Deputy Director, Agricultural Development, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He says the Foundation he works for looks at sustainability “through a very different lens compared to many other organizations.” He then proceeded to say that there are a billion people in the world who live on under a dollar a day and described what that is like. He says that agriculture is the primary means for most of them to get food and earn a living. He says they follow the Bill and Melinda sustainability philosophy that “every person on the planet has the right to live a healthy and productive life.” Next he says that there are normally three dimensions to sustainability which are economic, social and environmental.

Listen to Goedde’s reply here:

Next up was Dr. Michael Boehlje, Professor, Dept. of Agricultural Economics and the Center for Food and Agricultural Business, Purdue University. He said we could look at sustainability from a traditional farm management standpoint of carrying capacity that recognizes current and future capacity on a global basis and deals with absorbing waste in terms of the economic or production activity you’re involved in. He says that although government is involved in this issue, it will be consumers who “will be the ultimate in terms of whether in fact sustainability practices are adopted and those who adopt them are compensated for them.”

Listen to Boehlje’s reply here:

Finally we heard an answer to this question from Philip Wilkinson, Order of the British Empire, Executive Director, 2 Sisters Food Group. He said that the definition he would use is the one used by the United Nations but since that has already been brought up by earlier speakers he composed a slightly different one. He says, “A sustainable agricultural system is one which maximizes production by increases in yield while minimizing environmental impact and does not compromise animal welfare.” He says farmers are the logical custodians of the land who can accomplish this. He also quoted a former United Kingdom Minister who summed it us as, “Don’t cheat your children.”

Listen to Wilkinson’s reply here:

So there you have it. Three more ways to look at this issue. Now if we could all just agree on a common definition . . . You can find NCGA CEO Rick Tolman’s definition here.