Mitigating Agriculture's Impact

A panel discussion co-founder of the sustainable sugarcane standard Bonsucro and two representatives of current Bonsucro member companies as they discuss their efforts to leverage interests in the sugarcane supply chain to improve growing practices around the world.

Kevin Orgozalek, Manager of Bonsucro / World Wildlife Fund will speak regarding precision agriculture and collaborative approaches to improving sugarcane growing practices in Brazil, South Africa, Australia.

David McLaughlin, the VP of Agriculture at the World Wildlife Fund, discusses challenges of commercial scale-sustainable agriculture in the context of a case study in Palm Oil industries.

In the final lecture of the Salmon Aquaculture Module, we discuss the business perspective of several mitigation strategies for the environmental impact of salmon aquaculture. Specifically, technological solutions and marketing strategies are discussed.

In this lecture, Dr. John Volpe of the Seafood Ecology Research Group based at the University of Victoria, Canada the challenges of evaluating the seafood eco-lableling industry. Specifically, Dr. Volpe discusses the metrics used in an seafood eco-label index, known as the the Global Aquaculture Performance Index. In addition, Dr. Volpe explains his views on the future of sustainable seafood in the context of land-based recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS).

Dr. Mike Williams, Director of the Animal and Poultry Waste Management Center at North Carolina State University, discusses how animal waste impacts the environment. Dr. Williams goes on to discuss animal waster management systems that seek to reduce the environmental impact of animal production, especially for cattle. The techniques discussed place an emphasis on land application and anaerobic digestors.

Mr. Lee Kane, Eco-Czar for Whole Foods Market, describes how Whole Foods Markets is striving to optimize its supply chain management for produce items such as tomatoes. Mr. Kane also details the food waste reduction techniques that Whole Foods currently employs and its future goals for minimizing food waste.

As founder and owner of Jacobs Farm Del Cabo, Mr. Jacobs gives an overview of the on-farm mitigation strategies that he uses to grow organic cherry tomatoes, basil and strawberries.

In this lecture, Ms. Winberry gives the class a brief overview of the tomato industry. Ms. Winberry goes on to discuss the challenges she as faced creating a Stewardship Index for specialty crops such as tomatoes.