The Major Value of the California Almond Sustainability Program
The California Almond Sustainability Program with Best Management Practices--- Now 11 years old.Eric Harris is the Senior Director of Science and Sustainability for SureHarvest, the technical advisor to the Almond Board to help develop the sustainability program.
“Eleven years ago we had, which is illustrative of the forward looking nature of the almond industry, developed a sustainability program,” said Harris.
“With the assessments as a core element that provide a statistically valid industry level data of the performance of the almond industry from a sustainability perspective,” he said. “That history has allowed us see patterns and trends including increasing participation.”
“Over time and with the last couple of years in particular, we're seeing increasing participation by the grower community and working with the platform and completing the assessments,” said Harris.
Harris said there are definitely positive trends on the assessments side. “We're able now to also start looking at not only participation numbers, which show positive trends of increasing participation by the grower community, but also positive aspects in terms of trends in the data with respect to farming practices of positive shifts, and adoption of best management practices,” he noted.