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February 2015 Wines&Vines 27 vineyard view vest Board of Directors is made up of professionals from around the United States rep- resenting university research, private agriculture consulting, agriculture business, food pro- cessing and environmental NGOs. Board members have developed standards for a wide array of specialty crops including fresh market pota- toes, citrus, stone fruit, mush- rooms and cut flowers as well as wine grapes. The Protected Harvest board worked with growers and other regional crop sector stakeholders to develop a ro- bust set of farming practice standards for the certification program. These standards were peer reviewed by ex- perts not associated with the program and then subjected to board approval. Pesticide use is certified using a pesti- cide-risk model developed specifically for Protected Har- vest programs—an approach not used by any other sustain- able certification program. An important goal of sus- tainable farming programs is to continually improve over time. The Lodi Rules pro- gram clearly embraced this goal when a committee of Lodi Rules growers took it upon themselves in 2012 to completely overhaul the sus- tainable farming practice stan- dards and bring them up to date with new developments in sustainable viticulture. They submitted the revisions to Pro- tected Harvest for scientific peer review and accreditation for the 2013 growing season. The revision contained 17 new practice standards including a new section on business man- agement and revision of most of the 102 original practice standards. Another indication that participation in the Lodi Rules program stimulates growers to implement sustainable farm- ing practices was found by research conducted as part of a doctoral thesis project by Dr. Matthew Hoffman (now the Lodi Winegrape Commission's grower program director) at the University of California, Davis. A survey of Lodi grape- growers showed that Lodi Rules-certified growers imple- mented 58% of the sustainable farming practices listed in the survey compared to 33% of the practices being imple- mented by growers not partici- pating in the program. Another important attri- bute of the Lodi Rules pro- gram is the impact it has had in the sustainable winegrow- ing arena. The Lodi Rules program has either directly or indirectly influenced three of the 10 other sustainable winegrowing certification programs worldwide. The viticulture certification stan- dards used by the California Certified Sustainable Wine- growing Program (CCSWP) and the Long Island Sustain- able Winegrowing Program are either based on or modeled after the Lodi Winegrower's Workbook, out of which the Lodi Rules program arose. The McLaren Vale Sustainable Winegrowing program in South Australia was developed after I visited them in 2008 to present on the Lodi Rules program. So what lies in the future for the Lodi Rules program? It will continue to grow if it can demonstrate an ROI to growers not currently in the program. The most likely way for this to occur is if more win- eries pay bonuses for Lodi Rules-certified wine grapes or encourage their growers to participate. Lodi Rules will also continue to exhibit lead- ership in sustainable wine- growing. For example, in 2015 LWC will publish a sus- tainability report for the pro- gram. Most participating growers have given Protected Harvest permission to extract a summary of practices they used from 2008 to 2013. These data will be aggregated to show the percentage of growers using each sustain- able practice and how this has changed over time. Look for this report to be published by LWC later this year. The Lodi Rules program ended 2014 in grand fashion. At a ceremony held in Sacra- mento on Jan. 21, the Lodi Winegrape Commission re- ceived the Governor's Eco- nomic and Environmental Leadership Award (GEELA) in recognition of the Lodi Rules program successfully integrat- ing resource conservation, environmental protection and economic progress. The Lodi Winegrape Commission also received a GEELA award for its sustainable winegrowing program in 2006. dr. cliff ohmart is vice president of professional services for Surehar- vest and author of View from the Vineyard: A practical guide to sus- tainable wine grape growing. Previ- ously he served as research/iPm director at the lodi-woodbridge winegrape commission. he has been writing about sustainable winegrowing issues for Wines & Vines since 1998. HoytShepston_Monthly09 10/31/08 4:44 TTB LABEL APPROVALS Low per-label costs Gov't. 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