Farm Business

[smokeyjay]

Sorry for multiple edits.  My laptop has a wierd way of jumping the text around for no reason.....

No offense taken, SW.  As for the organization, the members do not exist on the fringes of traditional agriculture.  Farmers like myself and others spread across the corn belt and elsewhere are participants.  There are a few folks that support "alternative" agriculture.  They are primarily people that are not active farmers though.  However, the majority of participants comes from traditional agriculture and mainstream organizations like NCGA, NAWG, ASA, the extension services, genetics companies, milling and baking plus Coca Cola and others. The discussion focuses primarily around traditional agricultural practices that we are using. I think there are some people representing wildlife groups as well participating in the project.

At another meeting with a national commodity organization, a large Montana wheat producer submitted a couple fields to input the data, and he was pleasantly surprised at how well his production practices were deemed "sustainable". 

Farmers who participate will only see their results with their names on it.  The output data can be accessed from a database by individual participants, but they will not have access to the input data, including personal information of the other participants.  This effort is to actually prove to the rest of the world that traditional farming practices are sustainable and that consumers can rest assured that food from these farms has been grown in a responsible manner.