FOOD SAFETY & SUSTAINABILITY
Farming
What makes our world a better place? Sustainability. Protecting and preserving the planet we live on. For many of us, we take for granted what truly makes our lives good: the air we breathe, the soil – when clean and free of pathogens, clean potable water, and perhaps most importantly, safe and fresh food to nourish ourselves and our families. These all depend upon the environment that surrounds us.
Farmers have long been stewards of the land, and must become the leaders in our age by seeking to utilize new technologies to better promote a healthy, clean environment for all of us to enjoy. This is a pledge that we make to our communities, here at ProSource, and it is a pledge we are fully committed to standing by.
Responsible Land Use
Our farmers know the benefit of crop rotation in order to maintain important soil nutrient levels. It is easy to completely deplete land of certain elements and render it useless for years, and this is something that we are careful to avoid. Our responsible cultivation practices also help reduce erosion and control weeds, ultimately improving the overall soil health in a lasting manner.
Water Conservation
A major focus has been placed on water conservation and reduction of unnecessary run-off on our farm operations. We have virtually eliminated soil erosion and run-off on nearly 100% of our onion crops by employing state-of-the-art drip irrigation systems. Reducing run-off equates to reducing the potential for water system contamination downstream, all while using less water and energy to grow our crop.
Reducing Energy Consumption
We have taken measures throughout all segments of business, our farms, our packing facilities, and our marketing department – to upgrade our equipment when appropriate, to produce necessary results with less energy consumption. We employ state-of-the-art, high capacity packing machinery that packs more volume in less time, with less energy. For example our introduction of Variable Frequency Drive controllers has made a huge impact on the start-up energy load usage on all of our electric motors. We continually seek and pursue new ways to increase our energy efficiency. We see this not only as benefit to ourselves financially and temporally, but also as an environmental effort that is very important to us as a company who relies on the land.
Corporate Responsibility
As producers and distributers of food, we feel a deep responsibility to help those who can not provide for themselves. We donate to the listed organizations below:
- UNICEF
- AMERICAN RED CROSS
- LOCAL FOOD BANKS
- FREEDOM FROM HUNGER
Resources
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Shipping Point and Market Inspection Instructions
These instructions contain information and guidelines to help personnel of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Specialty Crops Inspection (SCI) Division uniformly apply and interpret U.S. grade standards, other similar specifications, and special procedures.
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National Potato and Onion Report
Potato shipping point information