3 Benefits To CCFC’s Sustainability Program

By David Kuack|July 28, 2014

There are three main benefits to the sustainability program being developed by the California Cut Flower Growers’ Association (CCFC), in cooperation with SureHarvest, according to Kasey Cronquist, CEO/ambassador at CCFC.

The program offers farms an opportunity to do a self-assessment that helps them benchmark their current practices against an industry average or what the standard suggests are best management practices. Going through the certification process has the potential to save farmers money, time and energy, through efficiencies and organization management.
The program will give farms the ability to represent themselves at the local, state and federal level in government-relation issues relative to regulatory challenges. The program will bring a level of sophistication to farmers that they will need in the future to defend their sustainability position to government entities. This will also help them to save money.
If farmers have been successful at driving efficiencies and growing at high standards, then they will be able to inform and educate their customers about their sustainability efforts. The sustainability program will be designed to give farms an opportunity to tell their story about the “what and why” regarding their sustainability efforts.

“The water crisis in California is good example of why it is important to have a differentiator in sustainability issues that retailers and regulators can see. It’s going to be important for consumers and the industry to understand our conservation practices and why we have this oversight,” Cronquist says.

“California is uniquely different than anywhere else in the world. The opportunity for the industry to tell its story about what farmers are doing today can be a part of the solution going forward, to maintain production and jobs and to address the sustainability issues that we all have. Our farms can highlight that they have been certified and their customers can be assured
that they are doing all the right things environmentally.”

Read “California Cut Flower Farmers Help Launch Sustainability Program” to learn more about CCFC’s Sustainability Program.