Following the release of the U.S. Grains Council’s (USGC’s) Corn Sustainability Assurance Protocol (CSAP) and Sustainable Corn Exports (SCE) web platform during its 20th International Marketing Conference and 63rd Annual Membership Meeting, Carlos Suarez, USGC manager of sustainability, policy and innovation, sat down with the National Association of Farm Broadcasting (NAFB) to further discuss these new tools aimed at facilitating sustainable corn trade.
“The CSAP is a document that compiled all of the laws and regulations that U.S. corn farmers already abide by and showcases a large number of the best practices and innovations that they have been adopting,” Suarez said. “For SCE, it’s a web platform where you will be able not only to download the CSAP, but most importantly, it’s where corn exporters and international importers will go to register and issue shipments-specific records of sustainability.”
Suarez also spoke about the responsibility of farmers to include their corn in the new platform.
“We do not need farmers to sign up or register in our platform because we use the data provided by USDA of the number of acres that farmers report and that fall under conservation compliance provisions to determine the annual volume of sustainable U.S. corn.”
While farmers need not take action, Suarez did say these new tools will certainly benefit them. “Both the CSAP and SCE help farmers of corn and exporters to provide international supply chain stakeholders with a baseline of the commitment to continuous improvement in production practices. And it helps them to address the sustainability requirements and procurement guidelines that international customers, companies or regulators are requiring either in the present or that are likely to be coming down the road.”
