Highlighting Others' Sustainable Efforts Helps Define PotashCorp's Own Mission
PotashCorp believes in sharing what it has learned about sustainability with other organizations and giving credit where it's due.
Through its Enriching program, the company salutes the efforts of its business partners. Enriching encourages sustainable business practices, while sparking discussion about sustainability and agricultural issues.
In 2007, PotashCorp's Enriching website, www.potashcorpenriching.com, featured stories about community philanthropy and environmental stewardship. Visitors to the site read about Agriculture's Clean Water Alliance (ACWA), for instance. This alliance of agricultural (ag) retailers around Des Moines, IA is working with governmental agencies to monitor and limit the amount of nitrogen that farming puts into the watershed.
"When we formed in 1999, we thought it important to be proactive about the issue of nitrogen levels in the water and agriculture's role," said Roger Koppen, Executive Vice President at Heartland Co-op and a founding member of ACWA. "We drink the same water, use the same rivers as our neighbors, and are just as concerned about water quality."
The causes of nitrogen in the Raccoon River watershed where ACWA works are complex. Fertilizer applications aren't the only reason nitrogen levels rise. Weather, rainfall and temperature are often behind such increases, Koppen said.
But ACWA took a major step on one aspect of nitrogen levels in water by creating the Code of Practice for Fall Nitrogen Application. The code ensures that ACWA member ag retailers will not sell nitrogen for fall application until soil temperatures drop to 50 degrees F. This reduces the nitrates entering the Raccoon River from nearby fields.
"It is stories like this that inspire us at PotashCorp, and hopefully others in agribusiness, to engage with their communities and address problems," said PotashCorp Director of Public Affairs Bill Johnson. "ACWA is a great example of ag retailers stepping up rather than taking a defensive posture on the issue of nitrogen runoff."
The ACWA story was developed in 2007 and went live on the Enriching website in February 2008. In 2007, the site's Perspectives section featured the stories of Missouri ag cooperative MFA Incorporated and its $10 million scholarship program; Illinois ag retailer Brandt Consolidated and its community philanthropy; and the International Plant Nutrition Institute's look at the shrinking amount of land per capita dedicated to farming worldwide.