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ADM has Iowa farmers track sustainability
“Sustainabilty” keeps getting a lot of attention in agriculture. Maree Deventer – ADM Soy Sustainability program coordinator in Iowa — says U.S. farmers have been sustainable a lot longer than it’s been a buzz word, “Just in the idea that a lot of– most of our farms are still family farms and they’re being passed down generation to generation. There’s an initiative already on the farm to make sure that they can do that and leave something for the next generation.”
Deventer says their ADM/Unilever program defines sustainability as a continuous improvement process. She told Brownfield Ag News at the 2014 Farm Progress Show, “We don’t want to go into a farm and tell anyone how to farm. We’re not the experts on their farm, they are. We want to bring together the resources and the new ideas and the conversations between producers to foster that continuous improvement and make sure that everyone can do this 50 years, 100 years from now.”
Farmers track their sustainable practices and she tells Brownfield there are NO one-size-fits-all practices, “You’ve got a lot of flat, square fields in one area and you run into some terraces. You get down in the southern part (of Iowa) and you’re very rolling hills. So, you’re not going to be able to farm all of Iowa the same and we don’t want to take away the ability of the farmer to do what’s right on his ground.” Iowa farmers can sign up for the program through the Des Moines ADM Merchandising office.
AUDIO: Interview with Maree Deventer at 2014 Farm Progress Show (5:00 mp3)
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