Commodity organizations as drivers of sustainable agricultural transformation: a cross-cultural perspective

This study identified producer-led commodity organization initiatives and roles in advancing country sustainability missions and SDG 2: Zero hunger by promoting environmental, social and economic sustainable agriculture for food security and climate adaptability. The NVivo 14 content analysis of Corporación Arrocera Nacional and the Pennsylvania Soybean Board newsletters and social media posts from 2017 to 2020 identified motivation, innovation stage, and crop type influencing spatiotemporal unique initiatives and revealed context-independent initiatives in each sustainability dimension to guide the participatory development of organization sustainability indicators in other contexts. These organizations used effective communication strategies to support the development of local knowledge for targeted sustainability initiatives, but varied in actively inviting a participatory process through these communication platforms to address critical sustainability issues. Although sustainability advances were made by each organization, these key stakeholder communications lacked a unified vision of sustainability to support buy-in by not explicitly framing initiatives as sustainability strategies and not presenting indicators of success toward SMART sustainability goals. Eleven functional roles—liaison, steward, supporter, certifier, educator, trainer, recruiter, innovator, investor, advocate, negotiator—illustrate structural components of commodity organizations that facilitate adaptability to crises and are effective at developing sustainable agricultural infrastructure in local contexts.