Using an ecolabel to promote on-farm conservation: the Wisconsin Healthy Grown experience

Abstract

We report on a project to establish a market-based approach for the conservation of lands in an agricultural landscape. It is based on the Wisconsin Healthy Grown potato ecolabel, and the concept of certification. Potatoes produced in certified fields can be marketed under the ecolabel and, it is hoped, sold at a premium that returns to the growers to support the additional costs of environmentally sensitive practices. Although the label was launched on the basis of in-field practices, the growers and supporting conservation non-governmental organizations (NGOs) intended from the beginning to include a component into the certification that would require restoration and ecologically sound management of native communities on non-crop lands owned by participating farmers. We describe here the process by which this ‘natural community standard’ was developed and included within the certification. The certification requires either a financial or in-kind commitment to land management actions from a list approved by the certifying body. The emphasis has been on restoration of native prairie in marginal cultivated lands and moving wooded areas back towards the open oak-pine barren and savanna communities present at the time of European settlement. At present, grower interest and acceptance of the programme within the Healthy Grown community is high. Sustainability and extension of the programme to other farms and other commodities will require that growers acquire natural lands management skills and apply them in conjunction with private and government conservation entities. We conclude that market-based ecolabels have promise as a means of promoting on-farm conservation for a wide variety of crops and ecological settings.