What is essential in sustainable agriculture

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What is essential in sustainable agriculture?

• Richard Perkins, WWF-UK
• Senior Policy Adviser Agricultural Supply Chains

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You are!
Conserving Global Biodiversity
Food Consumers
Farmers
Food Business

• Your business is a key link from food consumers
  to the global environment

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One UK food company

• Supply chain impacts are five times
• in-house operational impacts

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Structure of presentation

• WWF approach
• WWF views on supply chain issues
• Big achievements
• Challenges

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Why is WWF working to improve agricultural
commodity production?
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Threats to our most biodiverse places

• Agriculture and land use change - 30 of global
  GHG emissions
• Land conversion - 18
• Agriculture 12
• Agriculture clears some of our most bio-diverse
  forests
• Oil palm
• Soya
• Cattle
• Agriculture takes too much water from some of our
  most bio-diverse river basins
• Sugar
• Cotton
• Rice

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Agricultures Current Global Footprint
33 of earths surface in crops or grazing but
55 of habitable area
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Forest loss A Former Forest in Mato Grosso,
Brazil
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Many products have several ingredients
A Latte
208 litres per cup
Lid
Water
Sugar
Cup
Milk
Energy
Wrapper
Coffee
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Water is Embedded in all Products

• gt90 of most products water footprint lies
  outside a companys direct control

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Water scarcity is local
so it matters where you source!
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WWFs Aim is
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• . . . to positively and fundamentally change the
  way products derived from natural resources are
  produced, processed and consumed globally, thus
  reducing key threats our most biodiverse places.

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Methods

• Use multi-stakeholder processes
• Focus on key global impacts
• Agree minimum standards
• By means of better practices

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Achieve bigger results by working together

• Select targets more strategically
• Use complementary capacity/skills
• Access different networks
• Learn from each other
• Change others

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Focus on key impacts

• Greenhouse gas emissions
• Water use
• Water pollution
• Biodiversity loss
• Toxicity
• Soil degradation and loss

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Agree minimum standards

• Establish farm-level proxies for key global
  impacts e.g. yield per unit nitrogen - a proxy
  for GHG emissions
• Indicators are needed at the catchment and
  landscape level to address cumulative impacts
• Agree a multi-stakeholder consensus on what level
  of performance should be reached

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By means of better practices

• BMPs are a means, not an end
• Todays BMP is tomorrows norm
• There are no best management practices only
  better ones
• Focus on results and let producers find the best
  way to achieve themdont be proscriptive
• Share informationthere are few global benchmarks
• The issue is how to think not, not what to think

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Accelerating Better Practice Adoption
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Supply chain issues from the Roundtable on
Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO)

• What tracking model to use?
• The end goal is segregation
• Link the claim to the supply chain model used

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Five challenges

• Business case for the primary processor
• Address cumulative impacts

• Unify our approach across commodities
• Report simple and credible outcomes
• How to include smallholders

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How to manage key impacts

• Start with specific issues (impacts and risks)
• Identify key commodities/ingredients with largest
  impacts and opportunities
• How and where are the products produced?
• What are key impactsactual or perceived?
• What global trends will affect production?
• Will increased production be from expansion or
  intensification?

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Being effective

• What to focus on?
• What are you big to?
• What is big to you?
• Identify the most strategic intervention point in
  the value chainleast risk, most impact
• Involve procurement staff
• Place your suppliers within global norms
• Only communicate results

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Three things for you to do

• Identify 1-2 key commodities or issues (e.g.
  raw material, packaging, energy, etc.)
• Measurably improve performance throughout the
  supply chain against global norms
• European industry and government need to
  collaborate
• to persuade governments in
  biodiversity-rich countries to set limits on
  agriculture that protect globally valuable
  biodiversity.

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To be more credible and more trusted

report measurable improvements in
your key impacts
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Thank you