Western Growers facilitated a panel on the Nexus of Food Safety and Sustainability at the 10th annual Sustainable Agriculture Summit in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on November 20-21. This session was selected from over 150 applications, highlighting the interest and importance of this topic in the industry. Joining Western Growers’ Science team members, Jeana Cadby and Joelle Mosso, were Gina Colfer of Wilbur Ellis, Dr. Matthew Grieshop of the Grimm Organic Center and John McKeon of Taylor Farms.  

It’s important to find a balance between achieving alignment between food safety and sustainable practices and create a robust conversation and interaction with the audience. The panel invited the audience into the conversation through relevant first-hand experiences and case studies highlighting key topics and data-related solutions. 

Here are a few key points around the conversation: 

• Food safety and sustainability require optimizing both, recognizing that risk management in the system is key. 

• Abilities to co-manage biodiversity on- and near-farm and soil health and inputs requires intentional measurement and monitoring. Establishing high-quality and consistent measurements offers the ability to contextualize risk and authorize the adoption of sustainable food safety practices. New technologies offer an accelerated understanding of systems and the identification of new solutions. 

• Sustainable Food Safety (SFS) prioritizes the interconnectedness of sustainability and food safety efforts to ensure optimal outcomes leading to the goal of environmental and agricultural resiliency. 

• While research is needed to better understand the ecosystems and best management practices, individual growers and farms require establishing consistent measurements to monitor and react to risks and ensure proper adoption of practices with crop production.  

• Ongoing dialogue is essential to educate about SFS, establish clear metrics, align monitoring methods and communicate the true cost of food production to both the agricultural community and society at large. 

For more information, reach out to the Western Growers Science Team. Additionally, to learn more about Sustainable Food Safety, see recent articles in the Western Shipper & Grower magazine here and here.