St. Paul, MN (Dec. 31, 2018)—Over the last several years, sustainability has become a hot topic for the agricultural industry. In 2016, the Louisiana Cotton Sustainability Pilot Project was created as a joint project of the National Cotton Council, Cotton Inc., The Cotton Foundation, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), the Louisiana Cotton and Grain Association, the Farm Bureau of Louisiana, and the Louisiana State University AgCenter. This 3-year project utilizes the Fieldprint Platform (FPP) developed by the Field to Market Coalition for Sustainable Agriculture for cotton, rice, soybean, corn, wheat, potato, and alfalfa farmers.
Rachel Holley Lee, a soil health research and implementation manager at the NRCS in Winnsboro, Louisiana, reviews the goals and findings of this project in a new “Focus on Cotton” webcast, “NRCS and Louisiana Cotton Sustainability Pilot Project.” She begins by identifying the goals set by the cotton industry in 2017 to measure continued improvements in sustainable production through 2025. She also outlines the sustainability metrics used by Field to Market: land use, energy use, irrigation use, greenhouse gas, soil carbon, runoff water quality, and soil loss. Growers involved in the project use these metrics to measure their sustainability efforts.
Lee’s purpose in this presentation is to help consultants, growers, and other practitioners in U.S. cotton-producing states understand how the Louisiana Cotton Sustainability Pilot Project is trying to close the gap between producers and the supply chain to meet the increasing need for transparent evidence of responsible production practices.
This 11.5-minute presentation is available through the “Focus on Cotton” resource on the Plant Management Network. This resource contains more than 75 webcasts, along with presentations from six conferences, on a broad range of aspects of cotton crop management: agronomic practices, diseases, harvest and ginning, insects, irrigation, nematodes, precision agriculture, soil health and crop fertility, and weeds. These webcasts are available to readers open access (without a subscription).
The “Focus on Cotton” homepage also provides access to “Cotton Cultivated,” a new resource from Cotton Incorporated that helps users quickly find the most current cotton production information available. These and other resources are freely available courtesy of Cotton Incorporated at www.plantmanagementnetwork.org/foco.
