In a letter to Michael
Arny, president of Leonardo Academy, a non-profit think tank facilitating the project
for ANSI’s consideration, Ball Horticultural Company’s Will Healy, D.S.
Cole Growers’ Doug Cole and Metrolina Greenhouse’s Mark Yelanich
expressed regret that “after two plus years of effort, only modest
progress has occurred” and doubt for “the intended
outcome of a National Standard acceptable to agricultural businesses.”



Jim Barrett, Ph.D., an environmental horticulture professor at the
University of Florida, sent Arny a separate resignation letter, in which
he wrote he “feels strongly that improving sustainability practices is
important for agriculture, our society and the environment” but that the
direction taken by the current project “will not lead to the types of
changes needed by the majority of
agriculture.”



Arny said he “appreciated the participation” of those who resigned and
“welcomes anyone” who would like to become involved with the project.



The biggest issue hindering the current process has been Leonardo
Academy’s inability to replace any of the agriculture producers who resigned last fall,
Healy said. “The committee makeup must have agriculture
producers and users at the table to make this process work,” he said.
Arny said Leonardo Academy is working to recruit replacements and hopes
to announce new members soon.



At the project’s onset in 2008, there was a “reasonable” committee
representation from actual producers or representatives of producers
through associations, such as the American Farm Bureau, Cole said. “At
the moment, the group does not come close to representing agriculture’s
interests,” he said, noting that environmental groups have dominated
discussions and slanted the standard toward “organic” interests without
much consideration for conventional farming issues.



One particularly “surprising” example of this is environmental groups’
belief that an animal must be present for a farm to be sustainable,
Healy said. “I don’t know too many greenhouse growers interested in cows
grazing amongst their crops,”
he said.



Because the current project has tried to put field agriculture and the
greenhouse industry under the same umbrella (despite the fact that the
two sectors’ practices and requirements vary widely), the current
project is “too big to be practical,” Cole said. He has recommended that
remaining members on the project “drop any work on the greenhouse
sector for their own benefit of maintaining focus” and because
independent certification programs, such
as MPS and Veriflora, do a better job assessing sustainability issues
specific to the greenhouse industry.



Addressing resigning members’ concern that the standard’s goal is too
broad, Arny said: “We think ultimately, as we get down to detailed
portions of the standards, we’ll be able to have a component that deals
with specific issues of horticulture.”



Additionally, Healy said he felt compelled to resign because there’s no
plan for what to
do with the standard to make it profitable and self-sustaining once it’s
created. “It concerned me that we might devote a phenomenal amount of
time and intellectual energy on something that would never take off,” he
said.



However, on the heels of agriculture and horticulture representatives’
departure in the last four months, “another path is being formed to
create national standards,” Healy said. “Agriculture producers believe
there is a
framework for sustainable production, and they recognize that what is
important for ornamental horticulture differs from what is important to
vegetable production.”



Although they pulled out from the project with Leonardo Academy, Healy
said agricultural producers “strongly support creating a national
standard” and “are investigating the possibility of working with a major
university to make it happen.”