California Third-Party Sustainability Program The Focus Of Cornell Seminar

Posted by Christina Herrick|May 27, 2014

Cornell University Cooperative Extension Finger Lakes Grape Program is sponsoring a seminar, “Lessons Learned from California’s Original Sustainable Winegrowing Certification Program: The Lodi Rules,” on June 5 from 5-6 p.m. The presentation will be held at Cornell’s New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, NY.

Matthew Hoffman, grower program coordinator for the Lodi Winegrape Commission, will discuss the Lodi, CA, grape industry’s experience with their sustainability certification program, The Lodi Rules for Sustainable Winegrowing.

This program was the first sustainability certification program developed for grape growing in the United States, and has served as a model for a number of other programs that have developed since then, including the VineBalance program in New York. Hoffman will talk about some of the pros and cons of creating a third party certification program like the Lodi Rules, and what kinds of impacts the program has had for the industry.

The Finger Lakes industry is considering whether or not to develop a similar program for itself. The Lodi Rules will be featured in a story in American/Western Fruit Grower’s July 2014 issue.

To register online for the event, click here or call the Cornell University Cooperative Extension Finger Lakes Grape Program office at 315-536-5134.