The farmer-funded Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy recently announced the opportunity for interested parties to participate in a 60-day review period for the new Stewardship and Sustainability Guide for U.S. Dairy, set to release this May with the intent to improve consumer confidence in dairy by providing more industry transparency.

The guide was first launched in 2013 through an industry-wide effort, created as a result of the increasing demand from consumers for more transparency about the food they eat and how it’s produced. The guide provides co-operatives, dairy marketers and other businesses a standardized way to assess, communicate and celebrate dairy’s longstanding sustainability story to buyers and stakeholders, and will help provide assurance that the industry, beginning at the farm, is meeting those expectations.

“This tool is one more way to show our customers that farmers and dairy companies do the right thing,” said Paul Rovey, Arizona dairy farmer, Innovation Center board member and chair of Dairy Management Inc.TM (DMI), which manages the national checkoff program. “The guide helps satisfy the demand from customers who increasingly evaluate environmental and social impacts of our industry when making purchase and other business decisions.”

Measuring sustainability efforts helps identify and assess resources and their impact to determine if changes in management practices or investments in technology are paying off. The farm indicators address soil health, landscape stewardship, resource recovery, feed management and water quality/quantity. For crop- and field-specific topic areas, the Innovation Center proposes adopting the metrics developed by Field to Market, the leading U.S. initiative focused on the sustainability of row crops. New processor and manufacturer indicators include resource recovery and air emissions.

Retailers, government agencies and non-governmental organizations may participate in a 60-day review period of the guide before its May release. The document can be viewed and comments submitted online through March 10. More information on the U.S. Dairy Sustainability Commitment is also available on the US Dairy website.