Origin Green: can the Dutch go Irish to green the food industry?

Krijn J. Poppe, Wageningen Economic Research

February 2017 Foodpolicy NL, Amersfoort

Krijn J. Poppe Economist Research Manager at Wageningen Economic Research Member of the Council for the Environment and Infrastructure

Member Advisory Committee Province of South-Holland on the quality of the Living Environment

Board member of SKAL – Dutch organic certification body

Former Secretary General of the EAAE, now involved in managing its publications (ERAE, EuroChoices)

Former Chief Science Officer Ministry of Agriculture

3

Content of the presentation

Origin Green: some questions and comments Comparison of Ireland and the Netherlands Is there a role for the Common Agriculture Policy? Take home messages

Management means measurement

Sustainability is an important challenge Measurement is key to management We are in the same line of thinking: there are many

initiatives to realise this

Dutch FADN on sustainability (PPP)

0

20

40

60

80

100

Cost priceper 100 kg milk

Income perFamily

Labour unit

solvability (%)

Energy use per euro output

Water use per euro output

-Pesticide use

per hectare

numberof days

Cows in Meadow

-Education

Surplus of Phosphate per

hectareSurplus of

Nitrogen per hectare

PEOPLE

PROFIT

<< PLANET >>

Annual monitoring

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Elements:• Transparent reporting by

independent partner

• Interpreting performance to evaluate goals and effectiveness of measures

• Support in developing monitoring (indicators – targets – methods – data)

• Annual: ongoing process

Greenhouse gases

Dairy chain emissions

Mtonnes CO2 Eq.

Energy efficiency

Dairy chain primary fuel consumption

m3 NGE per 1000 kg milk

Sustainable energy production

Production of sustainable energy

% of consumption

AntibioticsNumber of farms under the SDa action value

%

Cow lifetime Age of dairy cows at culling Years

Animal welfare To be determined Development of monitoring system (by 2017)

Pasture grazing

Total number of farms with grazing %

Responsible soy

Share of responsible soy %

Minerals Phosphate excretion of dairy cattle m kg

Ammonia emissions of dairy cattle m kg

Biodiversity To be determined Development of monitoring system (by 2017)

0 5 10 15 20

Goal 2020Current 2014

Benchmark 2011

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

Goal 2020Current 2014

Benchmark 2005

0 5 10 15 20

Goal 2020Current 2014

Benchmark 2012

0 20 40 60 80 100

Goal 2020Current 2014

Benchmark 2012

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Goal 2020Current 2014

Benchm ark 2011

0 20 40 60 80 100

Goal 2020Current 2014

Benchm ark 2011

0 20 40 60 80 100

Goal 2020Current 2014

Benchmark 2011

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

Goal 2020Current 2014

Benchmark 2011

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Goal 2020Current 2014

Benchmark 2011

Management of Change

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Elements:• Support in developing

sustainability programs• Workshops with all

stakeholders• Reflection on developments• Research to gain Insights in

perceptions and motivations• Data analysis• Annual: ongoing process

DSF: International standard for sustainable dairy

Klik op het pictogram als u een afbeelding wilt toevoegen

From a global framework, supported by the international dairy sector To a regional approach

and standardization

The Sustainability Consortium

THE SUSTAINABILITY CONSORTIUM © 2016 ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY AND UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS 9

Life Cycle Perspective

Category Sustainability Profile

• Social & Environmental Hotspots

• Improvement Opportunities

Multi-Stakeholder Process

Key Performance Indicators

• Up to 15 KPIs for retailer buyers to manage suppliers

Snapshots & Visuals• Simplified, visual training

documents showing lifecycle stages, hotspots, KPIs etc.

TSC translates complex sustainability tools into simple tools to allow buyers and other business users to embed sustainability in everyday business

• Global multi-stakeholder non-profit organization

• >100 company and NGO members, >1700s of users worldwide

© 2016 THE SUSTAINABILITY CONSORTIUM, WHICH IS JOINTLY ADMINISTERED BY ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY AND UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS 10

Continuous Improvement of Sustainability of all Food in NLParticipants

• Alliantie Verduurzaming Voedsel (AVV)• Pilot companies/organizations • Co-financing by Dutch government (PPP)

Goal, finance• Develop and implement a sustainability prioritisation,

improvement and monitoring system for all food sold in Netherlands

• Financing 2016: €300K 2017/18: 600K

Tasks project• Evaluate other sustainability initiatives• Adapt KPI’s• Formulate improvement opportunities• Pilots

EU farm sustainability data Demonstrate the feasibility (and usefulness) of collecting

Farm Level Indicators on New policy Topics (= data on sustainability) in different administrative environments

On 1100 farms in 9 member states, including Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Poland, Spain.

Proposal for permanent data collection on 20.00 farms Chance for food industry to go for large scale monitoring

of sustainability in Europe.

Move from yearly data to daily management by using ICT options in data sharing

> Farmers want to benchmark operational data (e.g. based on internet of things)> Digital by default and single entry (farmers should not have to type in data that is available in another computer: why do food companies send paper invoices or put them in pdf on a website?) Farmer as owner of his data and managing it with authorisations ICT Platforms like AgriPlace, EDI-Circle (PPS Farm Digital, PPS DataFAIR)

The example of Origin Green and other schemes raise questions: Trial and error to find the best indicators and form, how

do we learn from different schemes? Or are they competitive as being linked to marketing? How to realise international standardisation for

comparisons, claims to be the greenest, race to the top? Does the consumer value all these labels and schemes? Who pays the cost? The consumer, retailer or farmer (by

cost savings)

Can the Irish approach be copied in NL? Agriculture key in saving

the Irish economy Climate change treaty

has a big impact on agri. Tourism depends on rural

area: green image Classic central approach

of state and sector Top-down strategy

Less sense of urgency Transport, Energy, Housing

are also important transition areas in climate change

Tourism to cities and beach Moving away from collective

action (Frau Antje, LNV>EZ, commodity boards). NGO’s?

Innovation asks for bottom-up initiatives, new players

Is the sustainability challenge different? We have no societal consensus on trade-offs, like manure

management versus (perceived) animal welfare or between pollution here or abroad.

Improving farm management helps, but perhaps the easy part where profits and ecological sustainability go hand in hand has been realised ?

And other measures, including restrictions on the size of the industry are needed (manure problem)

Dutch industry is NW European based: sourcing over the border is easier than managing your Dutch farmers ??

Larger farms will bring the cows in...(good for the environment, bad for cows?)

Is there a role for EU Agricultural policy?

Some examples of a Common Agricultural and Food Policy Make our diets more healthy and sustainable

with a price that factors in true costs Incorporate climate change agreements

in farm decisions Install smart instruments for environmental management

(oblige environmental accounting?) Link direct payments not to land but to public values and

base them on industry schemes for greening

Take home messages The Irish initiative is an interesting and useful approach It cannot be copied automatically to the Netherlands

●Given the link with marketing Green Ireland●Given different challenges and institutional settings

But international monitoring and management of farm sustainability is one of the ways to go (let’s join forces)

EU’s Common Agricultural Policy should reinforce that Other measures (like putting a price on CO2 emissions or

tradable farm quota on bad outputs) could work as well

Thanks for your attentionkrijn.poppe@wur.nl

www.wur.nlBased on work of:Joan Reijs (Sustainability Monitoring),Koen Boone (TSC) Hans Vrolijk (FADN, FLINT), Sjaak Wolfert (ICT)