Growing Better: Sustainable Hop Cultivation and Supplier Partnerships

Abstract

Sustainable hop production is essential to maintaining both agricultural resilience and the quality of brewing ingredients. At John I. Haas (JIH), sustainability has been embedded in farming and breeding programs for more than three decades. Through the development of high-yielding, disease-resistant hop varieties, integrated pest management (IPM), organic nutrient cycling, and efficient irrigation systems, JIH has achieved measurable improvements in resource efficiency and environmental performance. This article summarizes ongoing sustainable agriculture practices at JIH farms and highlights JIH’s adoption of the Farm Sustainability Self-Assessment Questionnaire, an engagement tool from the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI) Platform, designed to strengthen collaboration and enable data-driven improvement across the hop supply chain.