The Stewardship Index for Specialty Crops (SISC) online calculator will take wing in February to help produce growers document and report on the sustainability practices they are using in their businesses.
Earlier this year, SISC announced a new partnership with the supplier management technology platform SupplyShift to move the industry toward a mobile-friendly tool that’s easier to use than traditional spreadsheets. A soft rollout of the tool is expected Feb. 1.
Origin and purposes
Founded in 2008, SISC is a coalition of growers, grower groups, buyers and environmental NGOs who collaborate to develop and maintain metrics that all parties agree are the most important indicators of stewardship. Those indicators are designed to capture insights into nutrient, water and energy use; soil health; habitat and biodiversity; and more.
SISC seeks to advance optimal production and strong environmental protection by offering a suite of science-based, data-driven metrics, director Alison Edwards says.
Edwards says the selection of SupplyShift came after SISC put out a solicitation of interest to software companies on their interest to build an online tool. After a number of candidates were interviewed, SISC chose SupplyShift in large part because its technology was well developed to facilitate two-way communication.
The SISC calculator will be available at no cost for growers to create a baseline of their stewardship and track continual improvement as they enact management changes. Aggregators, retailers, brands and industry groups can also use the SISC calculator to baseline and help improve the on-farm sustainability practices of their suppliers.
SupplyShift will be the central software provider offering the SISC calculator, with the ability for agricultural software tools to easily plug into the platform and provide input data to calculate the metrics.
“SupplyShift has the ability that it has to make it easy to communicate between suppliers and buyers across the supply chain,” she says. “We really want growers to get valuable information back from their buyers if they’re going to be providing information (to buyers),” she said.
Edwards said SupplyShift is built around the premise of two-way communication.
SupplyShift could be used by individual growers and also by aggregators of data like grower associations.
Associations or grower groups can use SupplyShift in an aggregator role, she says. Associations could use the tool to help their growers understand how they could improve efficiencies in water use, for example, or connect them with technical solutions and track their improvement.
That also would allow grower groups to better be able to tell that industry-wide story to the public, regulators and buyers on behalf of their growers.
The software is enabled for tablets and phones, but Edwards says most of metrics collected are annual information and most often might be recorded on a desktop computer.
The list of metrics for the Stewardship Index for Specialty Crop now includes:
- Applied water use efficiency;
- Simple irrigation efficiency;
- Habitat and biodiversity;
- Energy use;
- Nitrogen use;
- Phosphorus use; and
- Soil organic matter.
