Workshop 3: Plenary
Notes and materials from the special workshop hosted at the Field to Market Plenary in Minneapolis.
Materials
Meeting Summary and Notes
Do you agree with the goals below for the Biodiversity Metric?
These are currently part of Field to Market’s bylaws:
Defining, measuring, and advancing biodiversity.
Supporting diverse species and ecosystems by conserving and enhancing habitats across U.S. agricultural landscapes.
Important
⭐ At the meeting, participants added stars to comments made by others to indicate agreement or importance. The Stars column reflects how many times each comment was starred.
Responses
| Stars | Response |
|---|---|
| 3 | Will microbial soil health be measured? |
| 2 | Agree with the general sentiment. Would add the caveat to defining, measuring, and advancing for the agriculture sector or farmers. Make it cleaner who the audience is. |
| 1 | Perhaps there should be a modifier added here to affirm our commitment to the producers and industry. Biodiversity is the goal but any efforts we put forth should be reasonable and not detrimental to the producer and the industry. This compromise is the only way we can produce adoption and results on a large scale. |
| 1 | Make sure to consider all species: microbial, insects, birds, and mammals. Below ground and above ground. |
| 1 | The statement Defining, measuring, and advancing biodiversity needs to include context-based. The statement Supporting diverse species and ecosystems by conserving and enhancing habitats across U.S. agricultural landscapes needs to include support members in their efforts to. |
| 1 | Define best practices to improve and advance biodiversity. |
| 1 | Agree for now. Let the RFP outcomes inform what modifications should be considered. |
| — | How can we make metrics data actionable for farmers and ultimately help improve their bottom line and long-term farm and soil health? Soil metagenomics could be instrumental here. |
| — | Leverage what is already done, e.g., WBCSD Regen Ag Biodiversity metrics. Keep it flexible and context-based. |
| — | Goals need to be more explicitly defined. |
Do you think the Biodiversity Metric goals need to be rewritten? Would you expand on them or make them more generic?
Responses
| Stars | Response |
|---|---|
| 3 | Unpack and bundle the biodiversity metric. Narrow down to ~3 components. Make sure the metric is customizable and works for diverse set of farmers and Field to Market members. Start with things that will be required for regulatory purposes (e.g., deforestation and land use change, etc.). Enable farmers to get value ($) from these markets. Overlap of 1 – compliance, 2 – voluntary, and 3 – natural resource concerns. |
| 3 | Include microbial soil health, either in biodiversity or soil health metric. |
| 2 | Biodiversity is too complex to fit into one metric. There are a lot of subcomponents that deserve their own score. The definition of biodiversity is complex. Why not split the metric up into more tangible outcomes instead of bundling parallel definitions into one score? Make the score something that can have actionable outcomes. |
| 1 | I think the goals need to better capture the variability of biodiversity indicators that might be relevant for different geographies. |
| 1 | Clarify or pull out aspects of Fieldprint Platform already poised to measure components of biodiversity: water quality (SWAT+), land use change, soil carbon, GHG compliance. One more [goal] might not be meaningful. |
| 1 | Prioritize metrics that have regulatory compliance drivers. |
| 1 | The workshops have shown us the varied opinions on biodiversity. The current goals have been insufficient in creating ideals for which we should all coalesce. The goals should be rewritten after the research portion of the tasks laid out in the RFP. |
| — | The goal is sufficient for now, but may need to evolve as the outcomes of the RFP emerge. Better to be broad now so you have the ability to act on the findings. |
| — | Customizable and flexible so we don’t have something that is made for everybody and workable for nobody. |
| — | Pave the way for more investment in biodiversity credits. |
Would the RFP deliverables provide sufficient theoretical and practical foundation for a Biodiversity Metric revision?
Responses
| Stars | Response |
|---|---|
| 3 | The second and third bullets are very important in considering what actions farmers can take and considering what is doable. Agree with assessing existing frameworks. The assessment should include evaluating their results across all geographies to understand their impact. |
| — | Need to consider CSRD as a framework and how current frameworks align or don’t align with CSRD. Also, not that CSRD should drive us, but we should consider it. |
| — | Will there be some consideration of alternative land uses on biodiversity, i.e., a subdivision versus cropland. |
| — | On RFP, yes. Support FTM indicators report providing assessment for NIR (National Indicators Report). Seems challenging to assess grower use if only at landscape level. Clarify the goal; if members can’t agree, reassess. Integration into Fieldprint Calculator seems optimistic, expecting crosswalk will show wide variability, plus frameworks shift. |
| — | Metrics need to align to K-Montreal goals. How can they ladder up? |
| — | There’s currently a national biodiversity assessment underway so you could leverage those outcomes as far as they align with agriculture. |
| — | Regen ag includes GHG reduction plus beneficial to the planet. For our company, farmers will need to sign up to practices in both buckets for it to qualify as regenerative agriculture. So yes, developing better metrics would be beneficial. |
| — | The deliverables are thorough. They elucidate our underlying purpose, allow for research on practices that are helpful to biodiversity and reasonable for producers, narrow our focus, and consider potential roadblocks. |
What is the likelihood of your organization using Field to Market’s Biodiversity Metric?
If likely, how would your organization use the Biodiversity Metric?
If not likely, what other biodiversity framework does your organization plan to use?
Responses
| Stars | Response |
|---|---|
| 2 | Is anyone from Field to Market working with WBCSD Regen Ag metrics group? They have a biodiversity metric as well. Would be good if there is some coordination happening. |
| 2 | Use to describe farmer efforts through 4R advocate program towards biodiversity. Fertilizer relationships to biodiversity -> reduction in land use -> footprint of ag. |
| 1 | Could be used to show progress and improvements to landscape, as a result of regenerative ag practices. A way to prove farmers are able to make environmental improvements. |
| 1 | Possible. We need to be able to demonstrate in a creditable way the biodiversity uplift of on-farm management practices. To do this as part of a landscape-based approach for collaborative efforts will help value chain with Scope 3 and Nature. |
| — | We would use [Field to Market’s biodiversity metric]. Do summarize project outcomes for funders. |
| — | Possible. It would depend on the criteria that it is measuring and the recognition of the different growing areas and their relevant indicators. |
| — | Possible. It would depend on the depth of the metric, who the audience is and how it is measured. |
RFP Deliverables
Participants were asked to star the deliverables they found most important. Results are sorted by number of stars received.
| Stars | Deliverable |
|---|---|
| 4 | Define the parameters within which we must work (what is not scalable or not doable for growers, or for which there is no strong evidence) |
| 3 | Conduct a crosswalk between the most relevant biodiversity frameworks to select the most promising biodiversity indicators |
| 2 | Clarify the goal of the Biodiversity Metric |
| 2 | Conduct a literature review to identify key factors for cropland biodiversity in the U.S. and what actions growers and the supply chain can take |
| — | Framework for implementation into the Fieldprint Calculator |
| — | Assess cropland biodiversity in the U.S. over time with opportunities and challenges for inclusion into the next National Indicators Report |