The Potato Sustainability Alliance is a group that helps growers define, measure and advance sustainability practices in their production. And CEO John Mesko says last year PSA launched an online mobile app that farmers can use to report their sustainability practices and learn new approaches to production.
“We did launch, on August 1st, an adapted version of the Cropwise Sustainability app, which is supported by the Sustainable Outcomes in Agriculture Standard.”
Mesko says the quick and efficient app allows a couple of important things.
“First of all, a grower who wants to participate with us, when they fill out that Farm Self-Assessment they get back, right away, information that they shared with us, so they see how they scored.”
And, Mesko says at the end of the reporting period.
“In this case it was around the 1st of December. They get a benchmark report where their farm is compared against all the other farms in their community. And they don’t get to see exactly who those farms are, but they see a comparison against all the others aggregate. So, they know where they stand. They know where they’re doing really well, and they know where they have areas that could use some improvement.”
For questions about the app or more about the Potato Sustainability Alliance, visit their website at www.potatosustainability.org