Working Towards a Sustainability Index

Working Towards A Sustainability Index

I’m KayDee Gilkey with the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report.

For some, the word sustainability is synonymous with organic or natural. 

WSU Extension educator and Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources team member David Granatstein contends that sustainability has a range of meanings, none particularly helpful when trying to compare one type of farm with another. Rather, he says, what we need is a sustainability index to help us compare different types of farms.

Granatstein: “I don’t believe there is a line that you cross that you go from being not sustainable to being quote ‘sustainable’. That mental constrict really doesn’t fit the term and the concept of sustainability. It fits something like organic where there is a legal definition. It may fit global gap and some of these other programs. But sustainability is a lot fuzzier and complicated and better thought of in relative terms.”

Granatstein says agriculture’s diversity is really a strength when it comes to demonstrating different approaches to sustainability like: organic, no-till, conservation, technology and integrated pest management.

Granatstein: “So I think there is a real advantage to a diversity of approaches to figuring this thing out. I don’t think that there is one road towards improved sustainability -- and again as I said earlier, I don’t think there isn’t a line you cross. All of these different approaches I think will contribute, they will begin co-mingling, sharing cross-fertilization of ideas and agriculture will continue to evolve.” 

I’m KayDee Gilkey with the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.