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Cultivating Collaboration: Keystone’s 50-Year Legacy in Agriculture
For five decades, the Keystone Policy Center has brought people together to find common ground on the toughest issues facing society. Nowhere is that collaborative spirit more evident than in agriculture – a sector where science, stewardship, and livelihoods intersect every day.
From protecting pollinators to pioneering sustainable supply chains and leading global conversations on biotechnology, Keystone’s agricultural work has always reflected a single belief: real progress happens when people come together.
Protecting Pollinators, Strengthening Ecosystems
Keystone’s agricultural story begins with the smallest, yet most vital, workers in our food system: pollinators. As concerns over honeybee health mounted in the early 2010s, Keystone helped launch the Honey Bee Health Coalition, a first-of-its-kind partnership uniting beekeepers, growers, researchers, agribusinesses, and conservationists. Rather than placing blame, the coalition created a trusted space for dialogue and practical action.
Today, it continues to advance science-based strategies to address pests, pathogens, habitat loss, and pesticide exposure, demonstrating how collective action can safeguard both ecosystems and economies.
That same collaborative approach guides Farmers for Monarchs, another Keystone-led initiative. Formed in partnership with agricultural and conservation groups, the project equips farmers and ranchers with resources to establish pollinator-friendly habitat, steward pesticide use, and participate in conservation programs that benefit both crops and butterflies.
When the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed listing the monarch butterfly as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act in 2024, Farmers for Monarchs worked tirelessly to keep farmers informed. The collaborative updated farmers on what the proposed rule meant, how to submit public comments, and how agricultural production and conservation could move forward together.
Across both initiatives, Keystone’s role has remained clear: to bridge the space between agriculture and conservation, helping partners find common purpose in protecting pollinators critical to our food supply and natural landscapes.
Defining Sustainable Agriculture: Field to Market
Perhaps no initiative better illustrates Keystone’s model of collaboration than Field to Market. Born in 2006 as a “Keystone Project on Sustainable Agriculture,” Field to Market began with an ambitious question: What does sustainable agriculture really mean and how do we measure it?
Keystone convened farmers, agribusinesses, conservation organizations, and scientists to build trust and define shared metrics. The result was the Fieldprint Platform, a groundbreaking tool that helps farmers measure their environmental footprint and track continuous improvement over time.
“We had conservation groups, companies, and farmers all trying to define sustainability together — not as adversaries, but as partners. Keystone’s ability to convene people and keep them at the table made that possible,” said Glenn Prickett, a trustee of Keystone Policy Center who at the time was working for The Nature Conservancy.
Today, Field to Market is an independent nonprofit organization with hundreds of members and millions of acres enrolled in sustainability programs. Yet it continues to reflect its Keystone roots — uniting diverse stakeholders through dialogue, data, and the shared pursuit of continuous improvement.
CRISPRcon: Advancing Dialogue on Biotechnology and Innovation
As agriculture looks to the future, Keystone’s work has extended beyond the field to the frontier of science.
When CRISPR gene-editing technology emerged, it promised revolutionary possibilities, from improving crop resilience to curing genetic diseases. But it also raised profound ethical and societal questions. To discuss these questions, Keystone was called upon to lead CRISPRcon, an international forum that brings scientists, farmers, ethicists, policymakers, and the public together to explore how society should navigate such powerful technologies.
CRISPRcon’s mission was not to reach consensus, but to broaden understanding and to make participants aware of perspectives they may never have encountered.
Building on CRISPRcon’s success, Keystone also convened the NGO Gene Editing Roundtable, a forum where environmental and consumer organizations collaborated to develop shared principles for responsible governance of gene editing in agriculture and the environment. The group’s work culminated in a peer-reviewed paper in Nature Biotechnology, offering one of the first NGO-driven frameworks for gene editing governance.
Together, these efforts underscore a central truth of Keystone’s mission: that the ethical questions surrounding innovation must be met with the same commitment to dialogue as the innovations themselves.
A Legacy of Collaboration
These are only a few of the initiatives tackled throughout Keystone’s history working in the agriculture sector. Across every initiative — from honeybees to high-tech biotechnology — Keystone’s role has been to listen, convene, and build trust among people with different perspectives. For fifty years, Keystone has shown that progress in agriculture doesn’t come from any single breakthrough, but from the courage to bring people together to ask difficult questions, challenge assumptions, and co-create solutions that endure.
Agriculture will continue to face new pressures, from climate change to technology to shifting consumer expectations. But the Keystone Policy Center’s history offers a steady lesson: when science guides the discussion and trust guides the process, sustainable change takes root.
Explore these and other stories in depth through Keystone’s three-part podcast series on agriculture.
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