Agriculture has changed dramatically in the last few decades, with high-production technologies failing to account for the potential negative impacts on people and the environment. With food insecurity and water deficits on the rise, as well as soil fertility exhaustion and declining agricultural yields in some places due to intensive farming, sustainable and organic agriculture has become a leading solution that many policymakers, NGOs, standard-setting organisations, producer groups, and other stakeholders are advancing.
Several ISEAL numbers are tackling problems in agriculture, both within specific commodities and landscapes, and also across the range of farm sizes and levels of sustainability. ISEAL members such as the International Organic Accreditation Service (IOAS) are focused on verifying the competence of certification bodies active in the fields of organic and sustainable agriculture. Others such as Fairtrade International are focused on obtaining better terms of trade for farmers that can reduce poverty and improve farmer lives. Groups such as the 4C Association allow farmers to take some of the first steps towards sustainable practices, often leading to certification by another ISEAL member system.
