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32 POTATO GROWER | JANUARY 2022 Forward Progress Forward Progress How the Potato Sustainability Alliance is helping the potato industry achieve its goals By Tyrell Marchant "Sustainability." It's a word everyone seems to simul- taneously love using at every turn, yet rolls their eyes if someone else starts in on the subject. Everybody agrees that sustainability is an ideal worth pursuing. But the word has more definitions than Liz Taylor had husbands, which has at times made it difficult for agriculture as a whole to really say with any gumption, "Why, yes, as a matter of fact, we are sustainable." About 10 years ago, a group of potato processors, farmers, distrib- utors and a major restaurant chain got together to see whether they could formulate a plan for the potato industry to effectively and profitably lead the way in agricultural sustain- ability. The collaboration led to the creation of the Potato Sustainability Initiative to address potato sustain- ability challenges. Over time, the program has evolved into the Potato Sustainability Alliance (PSA), a roundtable format focused on defin- ing, measuring and advancing the potato industry's sustainability. PSA is made up of farmers, supply chain partners, non-profit orga- nizations and advisors who work together "to improve the environ- mental, social and economic aspects of potato production in the United States and Canada." In conjunction with industry partners, PSA supports the identification and adoption of sustainable production practices that meet consumer and market expectations by benchmarking and communicating the sustainability performance of potato production. "The potato industry has a good story to tell," says John Mesko, who was named PSA's executive director in 2021. "Potatoes are a productive crop; they're a healthy food. There are plenty of good stories to tell about the dietary benefits of pota- toes. But on the production side, we haven't always highlighted some of those same good stories. That's what we're trying to do at PSA." To help quantify the sustainability practices of the potato industry— and thus share that story with the rest of the supply chain—PSA con- ducts an annual survey of 500 to 600 potato growers, packers and proces-