Sarah Stokes Alexander, Director of Sustainability and Leadership Programs for the Keystone Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture, spoke to farmers and ranchers at the American Farm Bureau Federation’s 91st annual meeting, which focused on the state of sustainable agriculture.

The Keystone Alliance aims to find ways to increase agriculture production for the long-term without having negative impacts on the environment, and has developed the “Fieldprint Calculator” so farmers can assess their overall environmental impact in areas of energy use, soils loss, irrigation water use, land use and climate impact.

In the initial phase on the Fieldprint Calculator implementation, they found that farmers “already made significant strides in ‘sustainability’ as it relates to land and water use.”

This demonstrates real progress towards preserving the environment while feeding a growing world and is due, in part, to the wide-spread use of crop technology in the United States.

You can read more about the progress of the Keystone Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture here.