Sustainability

From finding new ways to feed a growing population, diversifying crops and livestock, learning about where food comes from, to handing down the farm from generation to generation, there's no single definition of sustainability. At a recent meeting an organization known as Food Dialogues discussed how sustainability means a wide variety of things. First, Steve Polski, Senior Director of Sustainability at Cargill. "it's a very difficult question. I can say that I look at sustainability as really being more of a behavior than it is a certification scheme or an end state or a target. It's more of a journey the more we learn about where food comes from, how it's made, where it is consumed. The more we measure that, that which gets measured gets done as we continue to evolve information and metrics and the whole transparency equation, I think we get better. So it's a journey, it is certainly not a destination.

Next, Steve Peterson, former Director of Sustainability sourcing for General Mills: " I have been retired for 10 days now but I say that I do my grand kids work. I believe this nexus of food production and feeding the growing human population is probably one of the most pressing issues for humanity. It is not our issue, it is all of our issues. At the highest level I think about sustainability from that perspective. From the General Mills perspective, we think about sustainability of our business. I have 30 years of sourcing. I have a Japanese family who thinks seven years out when they do business planning. We don't do that much in the United States. We think about tomorrow or week ahead.