Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
USEPA and
other funders
SAREP
Scientists
UCCE Farm Advisors
CCVT
(growers'
organization)
Commodity
Organization
Wineries
Growers
PCAs
Public
Farm workers
Figure 6.11
The Central Coast Vineyard Team network.
mium production districts, and they have supported the Central Coast
Vineyard Team in part to protect their public reputation.
16
The Positive
Points System appealed to participants because it provided a structure
for learning from each other, but it also gave them a tool for communi-
cating to the public.
The same environmental controversies that dogged the North Coast
began to find expression in the Central Coast region in the mid 1990s
and similarly stimulated vineyard owners, managers, and employees to
debate the operational meaning of sustainability. The winegrape indus-
try in this region is sufficiently concentrated that its leaders knew each
other, and the process of creating the Positive Points System intensified
their social network.
Members of the group have addressed tensions between creating exclu-
sively scientifically objective criteria and the need to represent themselves
to the public. The team uses the PPS to represent themselves to the pub-
lic. It has received funding directly from the USEPA and indirectly from
that agency through SAREP. Team leaders feel confident that the PPS
measures sustainability at least as well as it measures any other criteria,
and they welcome scrutiny by their critics. The PPS has given these grow-
ers additional confidence in being able to face vineyard critics in an open
way. The objectivity of the criteria is useful for growers scrutinizing each
