Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc., Boston, announced its commitment to advance sustainable agriculture practices across the entirety of its farmland by 2020.
The farmer-owned cooperative has committed to sustainably farming all of its cranberries, making Ocean Spray Cranberries. The cooperative is owned by 700 family farmers. In its next phase, Ocean Spray will work to verify Ocean Spray’s fruit as sustainably farmed by benchmarking it to the Farm Sustainability Assessment (FSA), a comprehensive tool for sustainable farming that was developed by the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative Platform (SAI Platform).
“It is important to have companies like Ocean Spray that create sustainable agricultural systems and lead as an example to other companies,” said Nick Betts, director of Americas for the SAI Platform, in a statement.
SAI Platform defines sustainable agriculture as the efficient production of safe, high quality agricultural products, in a way that protects and improves the natural environment and the social and economic conditions of farmers, their employees, and local communities, as well as safeguards the health and welfare of all farmed species.
As Ocean Spray looks toward the future, the cooperative strives to create a lasting positive impact for people and the environment — from farms to families.
“As farmer-owners of Ocean Spray Cranberries, we are always looking for ways to help the business by creating a point of differentiation. We saw an ethical as well as business need to pursue a sustainable agriculture model,” said Craige Scott, both a farmer and the chair of the Growers’ Committee at Ocean Spray, in a statement. “Our goal of certifiable sustainability started more than eight years ago when we sought to highlight the responsible nature of our farming practices, our commitment to community and our obligation to our employees. I am proud to say that after many years of hard work and dedication to purpose, we are ready to take this final step to assure consumers they are buying healthy products grown by families the right way.” BI
