On November 19th, Field to Market: The Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture® honored the recipients of its 2024 Sustainability Leadership Awards on the eve of the 10th Annual Sustainable Agriculture Summit in Minneapolis, MN. Now in their eighth year, the awards—presented as the capstone of the Alliance’s fall meeting—are given to farmers, individuals, and organizations who have demonstrated outstanding leadership through their efforts to advance continuous improvement in the sustainability of US commodity crop production.
HEI is proud to have been recognized as part of Field to Market’s 2024 Collaboration of the Year, the Peninsula Pride Farms Project. HEI collaborated with Farmers for Sustainable Food and Peninsula Pride Farms, located in Wisconsin, to connect downstream members of the agricultural value chain with conservation-minded farmers in a local, farmer-led conservation group to make improvements to water quality and soil health. HEI has been a key partner in the project, supporting a collaborative effort that advances the continuous improvement of sustainability at the field and landscape level in northeast Wisconsin.
“Congratulations to each of our three awardees—their dedication to innovation and continual improvement is a testament to how collaborative efforts across the value chain foster resilience for farmers and the environment,” says Field to Market President Carrie Vollmer-Sanders. “We applaud Bob Walker, Christine Bielski, and the partners involved in the Peninsula Pride Farms Project, for their dedication to advancing the sustainability of US agriculture.”
“It has been our privilege and honor to work with these dedicated, conservation-minded farmers and Farmers for Sustainable Foods to address local environmental concerns about nitrates in groundwater and surface water quality,” says Doug Thomas, Senior Project Manager at HEI. “Assisting in providing science-based information using Field to Markets’ Fieldprint ® Platform will help inform both the future work of Peninsula Pride Farms members and help with telling their sustainability story in the community.“
Doug Thomas (pictured above) speaks to the crowd after the team received the Collaboration of the Year award.
The winners of Field to Market’s Sustainability Leadership Awards are selected by the Alliance’s Education and Outreach Committee. Each recipient demonstrates leadership in the pursuit of continuous improvement, resulting in measurable results and a significant impact on both agriculture and the environment. This year’s program was made possible thanks to the support of Nestlé Purina Petcare and Arva Intelligence.
Learn more about this award-winning collaboration at www.fieldtomarket.org/awards.
