Food & Business Knowledge PlatformSustainable sourcing - Food & Business Knowledge Platform

A scheme and training manual on good agricultural practices (GAP) for fruits and vegetables

Ati van der Honing — Thu, 22 Dec 2016 09:06:34 +0000

This publication by FAO provides good Agricultural Practices (GAP) for fruits and vegetables during on-farm production and post-production processes resulting in safe agricultural products, ensuring a safe food supply. This publication comprises two volumes: Volume 1 (PDF) documents the entire scheme and Volume 2 (PDF) covers a training package on this scheme. This GAP scheme supports countries to establish an infrastructure in terms of standards, certification processes and accreditation systems in line with international standards and practices to facilitate regional and global trade. Implementing GAP during on-farm production and post-production processes resulting in safe agricultural products is of immense importance for ensuring a safe food supply. It has been developed as a regional scheme that may be adopted as it is or adapted by countries to suit their needs. The process for development of the scheme was through initial discussions on a draft at a regional workshop in September 2014 that was then implemented in four pilot countries, namely Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives and Nepal. This GAP scheme comprises three important areas or sections: standards for GAP; the structure for implementation in the country; and the certification and accreditation aspects. It is hoped that the publications will be useful not only to South Asian countries but also to other countries.

Published in 2016

A shared approach to performance measurement: Common indicators and metrics

F&BKP Office — Thu, 18 Aug 2016 15:26:49 +0000

This paper (PDF) presents an aligned yet customizable framework of indicators for measuring farm-level sustainability in smallholder agricultural supply chains. These indicators are proposed primarily in the context of performance measurement, but can also be useful for more in-depth impact evaluation studies. The proposal is not for one single common set of indicators, but rather for using the same indicators when asking the same types of questions at the farm and household level. The authors argue that using the same indicators when asking the same questions in smallholder supply chains will increase comparability across data collection efforts and ensure that the community is building on the common understanding of how to gather credible, affordable, and useful data in smallholder chains. The ideas presented here are drawn from recent fieldwork of food and beverage companies, standards organizations, NGOs, and development agencies, and were synthesized as part of a community of practice led and facilitated by the Sustainable Food Lab. This community is co-led by a committee of practitioners from the Committee on Sustainability Assessment (COSA), the International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labeling Alliance (ISEAL), the IDH/Sustainable Trade Initiative, Rainforest Alliance, the Ford Foundation, the Center for Development Innovation of Wageningen (CDI), Nestlé, Root Capital, Mars Inc., and the Sustainable Food Lab. The work is funded by the Ford Foundation and the IDH Sustainable Trade Initiative.

Balancing detail and scale in assessing transparency to improve the governance of agricultural commodity supply chains

F&BKP Office — Fri, 01 Jul 2016 14:42:00 +0000

In this article in the Environmental Research Letters, a complementary approach to existing approaches of assessing the sustainability of commodity supply chains is introduced. This approach can help provide actionable information, for example to improve sourcing and production practices, without requiring costly dedicated tracking systems for each individual supply chain. The authors illustrate some of the advantages of a complementary middle-ground approach that balances detail and scale of supply chain transparency information by combining consistent country-wide data on commodity production at the sub-national (e.g. municipal) level with per shipment customs data to describe trade flows of a given commodity covering all companies and production regions within that country. This approach can support supply chain governance in two key ways. First, enhanced spatial resolution of the production regions that connect to individual supply chains allows for a more accurate consideration of geographic variability in measures of risk and performance that are associated with different production practices. Second, identification of key actors that operate within a specific supply chain, including producers, traders, shippers and consumers can help discriminate coalitions of actors that have shared stake in a particular region, and that together are capable of delivering more cost-effective and coordinated interventions. The potential of this approach is illustrated with examples from Brazil, Indonesia and Colombia. It is discussed how transparency information can deepen understanding of the environmental and social impacts of commodity production systems, how benefits are distributed among actors, and some of the trade-offs involved in efforts to improve supply chain sustainability.

The OECD-FAO guidance for responsible agricultural supply chains

F&BKP Office — Mon, 06 Jun 2016 11:59:16 +0000

This guide by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), has been developed to help enterprises observe existing standards for responsible business conduct along agricultural supply chains. These standards include the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, the Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems, and the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security. Observing these standards helps enterprises mitigate their adverse impacts and contribute to sustainable development. The Guidance targets all enterprises operating along agricultural supply chains, including domestic and foreign, private and public, small, medium and large-scale enterprises. It covers agricultural upstream and downstream sectors from input supply to production, post-harvest handling, processing, transportation, marketing, distribution and retailing. The following areas of risk arising along agricultural supply chains are addressed: human rights; labour rights; health and safety; food security and nutrition; tenure rights over and access to natural resources; animal welfare; environmental protection and sustainable use of natural resources; governance; and technology and innovation.

Sustainable global agrifood supply chains: Exploring the barriers

F&BKP Office — Tue, 31 May 2016 12:13:59 +0000

The article (PDF) in the Journal of Industrial Ecology investigates the factors that make businesses postpone integrating the performance dimension of sustainability in global agrifood supply chains. Based on literature-based conceptual reasoning, the article conceptualizes a double company lens distinguishing between substantial supply chain management and mere public relations endeavors as a major obstacle for businesses pursuing comprehensive supply chain performance in global agrifood chains. The authors point out that many supply chain performance attributes represent, in fact, credence attributes that cannot be verified by the consumer, hence entailing an information asymmetry between the company and its consumers. Rational business responses to this situation tend to focus on symbolic actions and communication efforts by means of sustainability reports and other brand-enhancing marketing tools that may be decoupled from substantial operations and supply chain improvements. The research propositions developed have partly been corroborated by a content analysis of annual and sustainability reports of four major agrifood companies (Nestlé, PepsiCo, Unilever, and Mondelez International). The conceptual arguments and empirical analysis presented in the article may serve as the basis for managers and academics to develop innovative inter- and intraorganizational business processes that reconcile trade-offs between various agrifood supply chain performance dimensions, thus pushing the performance frontier outward, and that provide the necessary transparency for overcoming the currently adverse setting of incentives inherent in the food production, processing, retailing, and consumption system.

Drivers influencing farmer decisions for adopting organic or conventional coffee management practices

Nynke — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 13:52:31 +0000

This article in the Food Policy journal investigates which drivers influence farmer’s decision-making on adopting organic or conventional coffee management practices. The authors use the case of Santader, Colombia, one of the world’s most important producers of Arabica coffee, where both conventional and organic schemes of management are used. The results suggests that social identity of coffee growers, the influence of coffee institutions, attitudes about management practices, and social relations of production, all play an important role in the process of decision making. The authors identified 18 socioeconomic drivers. Important factors were technology availability, the type of landowner, formal education of farmers, the role of institutions, membership of community organisations, farm size, coffee productivity and the number of coffee plots per farm. Likewise, economic drivers, such as crop profitability, determined how farmers are involved in trade and market networks at broad regional, national, and international spatial scales. The complexity of factors that influencing adoption of coffee management schemes is great and that not only financial factors but also a variety of other social factors drive farmer decision making. The authors argue that identifying the most influential behavioural drivers provides policy with opportunities to better support farmer livelihoods.

The effect of specialty coffee certification on household livelihood strategies and specialisation

Nynke — Tue, 05 Jan 2016 13:53:20 +0000

This article in the Food Policy journal analyses the effect of specialty coffee certification on income diversification of smallholders and questions the benefits of this certification for them. Smallholder coffee producers are responsible for 80% of global coffee production and need farm certification to access specialty coffee markets. Although rural households are known to depend on more than agricultural production alone, the literature on specialty coffee and certification has rather narrowly focused on coffee income and production. In this study, broader impacts are explicitly taken into account. Household income was decomposed into categories corresponding to specific income-generating activities and coffee income was broken down into price, yield and area effects. Results show that coffee certification encourages farmers to specialize in coffee production, increasing coffee income but not total household income, at least not in the short run. The time and effort required to attain the higher coffee income offered by certified production, means farmers have to give up other activities. This substitution effect cancels out the income effect, such that there is no increase in total household income. The lack of an effect on total household income suggests the return to the additional labor effort required for certified coffee production is not higher than in other activities, questioning the benefits of certification for small-scale producers.

Sustainable evaluation and verification in supply chains: Aligning and leveraging accountability to stakeholders

Babs — Thu, 22 Oct 2015 15:22:11 +0000

This article in the Journal of Operations Management, synthesizes a model that proposes how firms might address accountability for sustainability issues in their supply chain. At its core, the construct of sustainable evaluation and verification (SEV) captures three interrelated dimensions: inclusivity, scope, and disclosure. These dimensions characterize how supply chain processes might identify key measures, collect and process data, and finally, verify materiality, reliability and accuracy of any data and resulting information. As a result, the concept of monitoring is significantly extended, while also considering how different stakeholders can play diverse, active roles as metrics are established, audits are conducted, and information is validated. Also, several antecedents of SEV systems are explored. Finally, the means by which an SEV system can create a competitive advantage are investigated. The model of SEV proposed here provides a conceptual foundation for building specific measures, understanding complex relationships, and integrating additional theory.

Sustainable sourcing of global agricultural raw materials: Assessing gaps in key impact and vulnerability issues and indicators

Babs — Thu, 03 Sep 2015 15:12:21 +0000

For this research article at PlOS One, a comprehensive list of sustainable sourcing issues was collated in order to better structure the complex relationships and assess any gaps. The issues were pulled from the following three perspectives: major global sustainability assessments, sustainability communications from global food companies, and conceptual frameworks of sustainable livelihoods from academic publications. These terms were then integrated across perspectives using a common vocabulary, classified by their relevance to impacts and vulnerabilities, and categorized into groups by economic, environmental, physical, human, social, and political characteristics. These issues were then associated with over 2,000 sustainability indicators gathered from existing sources. A gap analysis was performed to determine if particular issues and issue groups are over or underrepresented. This process resulted in 44 “integrated” issues that are composed of 318 “component” issues. This current network of carefully selected issue and indicators forms a basis for an evolving, dynamic network informed by input from stakeholder partners on the relevant issues and useful, salient, and transparent indicator sets.

Principles & practices for sustainable dairy farming 2015

Babs — Mon, 03 Aug 2015 15:35:58 +0000

This document by SAI Platform provides a set of Principles and suggested Practices for Sustainable Dairy Farming for the mainstream market in all regions of the world. It is designed to be dynamic and revised regularly on the basis of new practical experience and knowledge generation. It is meant to be ‘delivered’ and used with specific guidelines and practical tools relevant to local innovations and prevailing conditions (according to the region and its climate, ecological variables, farming systems, cultures etc.) as well as respecting national laws and regulations. This 2015 review has also taken the Principles to another level in that it has been aligned with the Global Dairy Agenda for Action program known as the Dairy Sustainability Framework (DSF) – which was launched in October 2013. This was important as the Principles support the dairy sector in working towards the Criteria and Strategic Intents of the DSF. A gap analysis was undertaken to identify any gaps in the coverage of the Principles and identified gaps have subsequently been addressed.

Interactive practitioner’s guide for sustainable sourcing of agricultural raw materials

Babs — Wed, 15 Jul 2015 14:39:55 +0000

This SAI Platform practitioner’s guide is a reference manual for companies seeking to source their agricultural raw materials sustainably. It is intended for any food and beverage company buying its agricultural raw materials from farmers and farmer organisations directly, or indirectly through supplier companies. It describes every step of the process of a company’s sustainable sourcing strategy development and implementation, and contains suggestions, advice and concrete examples for each of those steps.

The 10 principles of food industry sustainability

Babs — Wed, 10 Jun 2015 15:40:53 +0000

This book identifies the most pressing sustainability priorities across the entire food supply chain and shows, with tools and examples, how producers, processors, packers, distributors, marketers and retailers all play a role in advancing improvement. The book begins with an overview of the Principles of sustainability in the food industry: what they are and why they matter. Subsequent chapters focus on each of the Ten Principles in detail: how they relate to the food industry, their global relevance (including their environmental, health, and social impacts), and the best practices to achieve the potential of meaningful and positive progress that the Principles offer. Specific examples from industry are presented in order to provide scalable solutions and bring the concepts to life, along with top resources for further exploration. The Principles, practices, and potential of sustainability in the food industry covered in this book are designed to be motivating and to offer a much-needed and clear way forward towards a sustainable food supply.

Advancing health and well-being in food systems: strategic opportunities for funders

Babs — Tue, 09 Jun 2015 15:03:57 +0000

The working group of the Global Alliance for the Future of Food commissioned four scoping papers (PDF), one for each of its strategies, from cutting-edge experts in the field of food systems policy and practice. The papers focus on key recommendations for action by funders to promote positive systemic change in food systems and to strengthen the fundamental role that food systems play in creating and sustaining health and well-being in all communities and populations. The papers seek to promote policies and actions that: enhance access to healthy, high quality food at affordable prices through diverse outlets; minimize the marketing and distribution of foods that contribute to disease and inequities in health; and support healthy and resilient community environments.

Indicators of global sustainable sourcing as a set covering problem: an integrated approach to sustainability.

Babs — Tue, 19 May 2015 15:50:38 +0000

This paper in the Ecosystem Health and Sustainability Journal, presents a new method to systematically link issues and indicators under two conceptual frameworks of sustainability in order to enable quantitative analyses. The authors demonstrate this approach with a specific use case focused on the global sourcing of agricultural products. They used the optimization software Marxan in a novel way to develop minimum sets of indicators that provide maximum coverage of sustainability issues. Minimum covering sets were identified and accumulation curves were developed to measure the contribution of each indicator in each set to overall issues coverage. While greater detail in the assessment of each indicator would likely provide more effective sets of indicators, those that were generated provide optimism that this approach can bring better focus to sustainability assessments.

Oxfam’s agricultural sourcing scorecard: food and beverage companies must do more to tackle climate change

Babs — Mon, 18 May 2015 14:06:27 +0000

Oxfam’s ‘Behind the Brands’ assesses the companies’ policies and commitments to improve food security and sustainability. It looks at how well they perform on issues relating to transparency, women, workers, farmers, land, water, and climate. In the latest ‘scorecard’ of March 2015, which rates the agricultural sourcing policies of the top 10 international food and drink companies, Unilever has come top of a ‘scorecard’. Oxfam calls on the Big 10 to face up to the scale of greenhouse gas emissions produced through their supply chains, and address the deforestation and unsustainable land-use practices.

How can Danone Ecosystem sustainable sourcing innovation be scaled up?

Babs — Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:31:11 +0000

This issue of the Down to Earth blog of Danone is about sustainable sourcing by preserving natural resources, strengthening the company’s stakeholders and global ecosystems, and ensuring that it is still able to accomplish its mission in the most sustainable way possible in the future. To reflect on these issues, Danoners and stakeholders gathered for an intense and fruitful three-day work session. The workshops ended with a strong focus on the challenges the Danone projects face. Based on votes from all participants, a list of the 5 most important ones was drawn up: 1) How to make farmers’ organisations and farmers financially sustainable; 2) How to attract young people to continue the farming business; 3) How to foster co-creation within Danone and look for internal support; 4) How to develop farmers’ knowledge; and 5) How to leverage animal feeding to further sustainable agriculture.

Cocoa barometer 2015: chocolate too cheap to be sustainable

Babs — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 15:48:43 +0000

The Cocoa Barometer 2015 (PDF) is published and funded by the members of the Barometer Consortium: FNV Mondiaal, Hivos, Solidaridad, and the VOICE Network (Oxfam Novib, Oxfam Wereldwinkels, ABVV/Horval, Berne Declaration, Stop The Traffik, and Südwind Institut). The cocao barometer was launched at the chocoa conference in March 2015. The main conclusion from the report is that at the moment, chocolate is too cheap to be sustainable. Current cocoa farmers are not receiving a living income and younger generations no longer want to be in cocoa. Therefore, this barometer focuses on the financial aspects of the cocoa supply chain. Previous Cocoa Barometers have looked at issues such as ‘Beyond Certification’ and ‘Beyond Productivity’. This Barometer looks at the themes “Value Distribution” and “Living Income for Smallholders”. Recommendations from the report include: 1) Develop a living income model for smallholder cocoa farming, 2) Address the price-setting mechanisms in order to increase prices at farm-gate level and 3) Move from voluntary to mandatory sector-wide solutions.

Oxfam-Unilever ‘project Sunrise’: enhancing livelihoods while strengthening supply chains

Ine — Tue, 31 Mar 2015 16:25:13 +0000

Unilever and Oxfam collaborated in the project ‘Sunrise’, which brought together the development aims of Oxfam with the sustainable sourcing efforts of Unilever. Together they explored how to build sustainable smallholder-based supply chains that could grow its business while reducing poverty for marginalised communities. The project studied pilot projects producing dehydrated vegetables, tea, tomatoes and black soy beans in such countries as Tanzania, Kenya, Azerbaijan, India and Indonesia. Sunrise has resulted in new guidelines for Unilever’s supply, which is now part of their procurement process. Oxfam has developed a guide for NGOs on how to work with private companies, based on the lessons learned from Project Sunrise. The report can be found here.

Coffee Barometer 2014: building demand for sustainable coffee

Ine — Tue, 03 Mar 2015 16:30:21 +0000

The Coffee Barometer 2014 (PDF) is a bi-annual overview of developments in the coffee industry. This joint publication of Hivos, Solidaridad, Oxfam Novib, IUCN-NL and WWF discusses recent developments in the coffee market, standards and certification and provides an overview of case studies advocating adaptation strategies. Ecological, economic and social aspects of coffee production, climate change and (voluntary) standards systems are covered. The barometer draws attention to the consequences of climate change on coffee production practices and the need to scale up and coordinate industry wide sustainability initiatives to make farmers more resilient. Furthermore, it highlights the importance of ensuring that women and the next generation of farmers remain in, and benefit from coffee production. The Barometer consortium calls upon the top ten coffee roasters to increase demand for sustainable coffee and to communicate transparently on the sustainable certified and verified volumes purchased.

Doing business with nature: opportunities from natural capital

Ine — Tue, 03 Mar 2015 16:26:37 +0000

The University of Cambridge and the Natural Capital Leaders Platform published the report, Doing Business with Nature: opportunities from natural capital (PDF), which aims to engage industry in a review of the global challenges around water, biodiversity and soil and showcases the extent to which companies are working together to develop new interventions in the face of natural capital degradation. The report provides a number of case studies that show the current steps international companies (such as Olam, Nestlé, Asda, and Mars) are taking to address natural capital challenges. The report shares some business responses to these challenges, such as capacity building, knowledge extension services and farmer engagement, while also highlighting the barriers to long-term and sustainable management of natural capital.

Source: CISL; February 17, 2015