Food Alliance Offers Two Sustainability Audits

Sustainability Audits for Landowners and Trusts

Landowners and managers of land trusts may have concerns about the condition of their properties and impacts that leasing land for farming will have on areas cultivated or adjacent to fields.

For those landowners and managers, Food Alliance provides auditing and reporting services using our established standards, evaluation criteria and inspection process – to provide assurance that lands are being managed sustainably. After an on-site inspection conducted by a trained professional, Food Alliance will provide an Audit Summary Report with top-level scores for pest management risk, soil and water conservation, protection of wildlife habitat and biodiversity, and an assessment of the operations demonstrated strengths and areas for improvement. Audit tools providing detail on the scoring criterion by criterion will also be available.

The auditing service is available to landowners and land trusts for the basic cost of the application and audit, making this a highly affordable service to assess and track sustainable management. Participating farm managers have the option to voluntarily pursue Food Alliance certification for their operation and its products, enabling them to make marketing claims if they pass the audit. If Food Alliance certification is sought for the farm and its products, annual licensing fees will be assessed on the tenant according to published Food Alliance certification fee schedules.

Sustainability Audits for Educational Purposes

If your farm or facility exists to serve a research, educational, or charitable purpose, consider becoming a partner with Food Alliance. Organizations that may qualify could include:

• A demonstration or student run farm at a university.

• A non-profit led farm to support community food access and/or gardening education.

• An incubator farm to train beginning farmers.

• A university food processing facility to train new bakers, cheese makers, etc.

• A non-profit led food processing or distribution business to support community food access and/or job skills training.

For such organizations, Food Alliance can provide an interactive and educational opportunity to participate in a sustainability audit with a qualified inspector, to assess strengths and weaknesses, and to develop goals and a plan for on-going improvement to the operation and social and environmental management practices.

Qualified partners pay only the actual cost of inspection (inspector time and travel). Partners are eligible to make certification claims for any products that do meet requirements, but all licensing fees are waived.

The standards, evaluation tools, and inspection process used for Food Alliance certification can give students valuable experience with audits and compliance, with direct application when they manage their own farms or develop food business careers. The application and inspection process are also an opportunity for education on socially and environmentally responsible farm and food business management practices.

Contact us with questions about certification and what a partnership could entail.