No single approach is either right or wrong when it comes to demonstrating food and farming sustainability, writes David Green.
Public demand for information about the food they’re buying is nothing new. And in many ways, it is now perhaps overly simplistic to describe the person at the shop checkout as a consumer. Dan Crossley of the Food Ethics Council has previously identified ‘food citizens’ as opposed to ‘consumers,’ and there is considerable merit to using that term.
We don’t just care about what’s on our plate, but where it’s come from, how it’s been reared or farmed, and whether the process of putting an item in our shopping basket has had an impact on the environment.
Research by UK-based consumer research specialists CGA last year found that 38 percent of British consumers would expect and even demand that the ingredients in their meals when eating out were ‘free-from.’ A report published this month by the Centre for Food Integrity in the US found that 65 percent of respondents were interested in knowing more about their food is produced. The research being conducted underlines the expectations of consumers or ‘food citizens’, who want and even require knowledge about the provenance of what they’re buying, and the confirmation it has been grown, reared or harvested using sustainable methods.
‘Gold-standard’ metric
As you would expect, farmers and food producers in the US are conscious of these expectations, but also how they are reflected in the countries they’re looking to export to. This includes the possible impact of Brexit, which will influence the export of foodstuffs from the US to the UK as the regulation of food and drink products shifts from Brussels to Britain. Speaking earlier this month at the Oxford Farming Conference, Environment Secretary Michael Gove outlined his expectations for a UK-based and post-Brexit food labelling system that he insisted would be a “gold standard metric.”
This ‘gold-standard’ metric is also intended to reflect a host of sustainability indicators including soil health, animal welfare and controlling pollution levels.
Such a focus on sustainability is very welcome. But metrics or standards for sustainability are nothing new. There are in fact hundreds of different standards and means of certifying foodstuffs in operation across the globe – and inevitably some are more robust than others. And this is the crux of matter for sustainability.
For example, the US approaches sustainability by demonstrating ongoing improvement with voluntary schemes that are independently verified or benchmarked. In the UK, there is more reliance on certified sustainability schemes and labels (generally based on social and environmental issues). Such schemes can show that a definitive set of criteria have been met. The downside to this one-size fits all approach is that a scheme’s requirements might not be relevant in different geographies.
No single approach is either right or wrong when it comes to demonstrating sustainability. The challenge is for the food industry, consumers and legislators to understand and accept that there will be differences between regions and countries and find ways to reach the overall goal of sustainable food supplies.
“No single approach is either right or wrong when it comes to demonstrating sustainability. The challenge is for the food industry, consumers and legislators to understand and accept that there will be differences between regions and countries and find ways to reach the overall goal of sustainable food supplies”
Sustainability has been in vogue within American agriculture for more than a century, with legislators taking action to ensure conservation and sustainability. Those efforts were redoubled after the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, when a prolonged drought and poor crop and soil management ruined farms across the Great Plains and left two million people homeless. That legacy and environmental necessity of farming with a conscientious and conservationist approach has left US farmers primed to meet consumers’ evolving expectations.
On the front line
A common view is that US agriculture is large-scale and industrial. The reality is quite the opposite. Nearly 99 percent of the two million American farms are family owned and operated on an average farm size of 178 hectares (440 acres), according to a 2016 report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). U.S. farmers like their UK counterparts are on the front line when it comes to protecting and improving their farms and the environment in which they live, work and raise their families.
And, as in the UK, American farmers are also considering and implementing blockchain as an effective method of being able to demonstrate the provenance of their crops and foodstuffs.
The future will see the continued rise of ‘food citizenry’, and this should be welcomed if it reinforces sustainable and environmentally supporting agricultural practices. The onus will continue to be on retailers to demonstrate the provenance of what’s on their shelves to their ‘food citizens’, and the trickle-down effect we’re already seeing is that farmers and producers will further embrace methods that enable them to demonstrate their sustainable practices.
With the issue of food-labelling seemingly high on the agenda of the Environment Secretary, the push for sustainability will only grow. UK agriculture is well-placed to respond. As is the United States. Brexit has opened the possibility of a UK-US trade deal. In the food and farm sectors concerns have already been raised by both sides. Such concerns need to be acknowledged. Different standards need to be understood. Opportunities to find collaborative ways to reach the overall goal of sustainable food supplies are there to be seized.
David Green is the Director of the US Sustainability Alliance, a representative body for American farmers, fishermen and foresters committed to sustainable practices and conservative programmes.