News

USB introduces sustainability assurance

The U.S. Soybean industry has come up with a plan to confirm the sustainability practices of U.S. growers to international customers…

“We felt that U.S. soybean farmers were the most sustainable in the world but we just don’t talk about.”

That’s Sharon Covert, a United Soybean Director and Illinois farmer who is chair of the USB customer focus action team.

She tells Brownfield their new voluntary U.S. Soybean Sustainability Assurance Protocol involves information growers are already providing to the USDA.

“When you’ve complied with all your conservation programs and you comply with rules of USDA then you can be ‘certified sustainable.’ It’ll be a mass-balanced approach instead of the other approach that they’re using in some other parts of the world where they come onto your farm and actually do an audit and it’s expensive,” Covert says.

For more information about the protocol go to www.unitedsoybean.org. Additional information will be added later this summer.

AUDIO: Sharon Covert (3:00 mp3)