Final Report Summary - SALSA (Knowledge-based Sustainable vAlue-added food chains: innovative tooLs for monitoring ethical, environmental and Socio-economical impActs and implementing Eu-Latin America shared strategies)
Executive Summary:
The SALSA project’s aim is to tackle the sustainability challenges in Latin America and EU by supporting the creation of sustainable beef and soy chains linking Latin American producers to the EU consumers. Certification schemes played a relevant role as drivers of sustainability in food chains. Twelve partners from the EU and Latin American have been involved during the 36 months of the project. To reach the multiple objectives of the project a broad range of activities have been implemented, which can be summarized into four different categories: 1) Monitor the beef and soy contexts (economic, social, environmental, institutional) in relevant Latin American and EU countries (WP2 and WP3). 2) Provide methods and tools to the soy and beef chain stakeholders to better assess and manage their business performances in terms of sustainability (WP3, WP4 and WP5). 3) Involve the different stakeholders in the process of defining and testing the methods and tools provided (WP6) 4) Raise awareness and improve the dialogue between Latin America and EU on sustainability in the beef and soy chain (WP6 and WP7).
The set of results obtained involve the definition of tools able to support the assessment and management of sustainable beef and soy chains, tailored on the stakeholders’ preferences (WP2, WP3 WP4 WP5 WP6 WP7). In particular: i) a database containing an updated collection of regulations and certification schemes involving the beef and soy chains’ sustainability; ii) software oriented to the life cycle assessment and sustainability improvement options’ impact assessment in the Argentinian, Brazilian and Mexican beef or soy chains; iii) software allowing for the self-assessment of compliance to the main certification schemes, and supporting the correspondent auditing; iv) web-based forums to exchange knowledge on the food chains’ sustainability; v) info repository providing access to relevant information on the food chain sustainability. These tools, all organized in an integrated web-based platform (the SALSA e-Platform) (WP5) are the result of a research activity where: i) the stakeholders awareness and preferences on sustainability have been first assessed; ii) a specific sustainability analytical framework was defined, where the governance dimension is included; iii) relevant case studies in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico were considered, providing a broad range of inputs to the definition of a sustainability analytical framework; in this context the indicators’ choice, their relevance to the specific contexts’ and stakeholders’ preferences, have been taken into account. The SALSA tools and the results have been disseminated and tested in Latin America and EU in a large number of meetings, workshops and conferences where stakeholders, ranging from representatives of relevant international organizations (UN General Assembly, FAO, COSA and Sustainability Consortium) to the local farmers’ organizations, have been involved. A training process, aiming at making the potential users familiar with the SALSA knowledge and tools, has also been carried out; fifteen staff secondments among the SALSA staff members took place. All these activities definitely improved the mutual knowledge of the Latin American and EU contexts and reduced the cultural and psychological barriers among the different stakeholders, starting a more informed and open debate on the best sustainability strategies for the soy and beef chains. In particular the necessity to balance an effective sustainability strategy with the difficulty for the farmers and SMEs to put it into practice in a business environment, emerged. The complexity of involving small producers and industries in sustainability resulted also affected by a still inefficient institutional and market arrangement, unable to reduce the technical, economic and cultural barriers to entry the sustainable food international markets. The necessity of a global debate on sustainability able to level the playing field emerged also as a priority.
Project Context and Objectives:
Project context
Sustainability challenges in Latin America
Latin America countries are facing environmental as well as social and economic challenges to their sustainable development. They involve, deforestation, CO2 emission, reduced biodiversity, water‐air soil pollution and soil degradation, reduction in food security, migration, unemployment, unequal income distribution). The consequent social and economic instability is affecting 75 million small farmers whose products are mainly oriented towards the self-consumption, and internal market. This also negatively affects the food security of the entire Latin American population.
Environmentally and economically sustainable productions adoption for small farmers and food SMEs in Latina America could significantly help reducing these negative impacts.
So far Latin America SMEs and small producers struggle to access the local as well as the export markets with products obtained adopting a sustainable approach (Lopez, 2006). This is due to technical, normative, social, political and economic barriers, among these the cost of complying with national and international quality standards and trade regulations.
Political context
There is an EU- Latin American governments’ mutual interest in developing strategies to tackle Latin American sustainability challenges by promoting social cohesion, economic development, and improving food SMEs markets access.
These strategies are based upon different joint initiatives.
The most important are the Madrid Commitment (2002) and the Rio20+ Summit (2012).
The Madrid Commitment conclusions of the joint EU-Latin America & the Caribbean Summit in 2002, state that “We need to take into account the importance of sustainable development, poverty eradication, cultural diversity, justice and social equity.”
These development goals can be reached through: “…. furthering our integration processes and increasing trade and investment [which] are important means of enhancing access to the benefits of globalization.”
The joint EU Latin American sustainability strategies have been further detailed at the Rio 20+ Summit in June 2012. The following commitments have been made:
- Share best practice and knowledge on sustainable agriculture
- Strengthen relations and information exchange to ensure that any issues that may arise are resolved effectively
- Encourage innovation, as well as increasing productivity
- Trade and technical working groups may be set up by the end of the year, or early in 2013
These joint commitments are consistent with the EU 7 key challenges to sustainability:
1. Climate change and clean energy
2. Sustainable transport
3. Sustainable consumption and production
4. Conservation and management of natural resources
5. Global poverty
6. Public health
7. Social inclusion, demography and migration
Market context
Soy and beef are among the most important products affecting both the Latin American sustainable development, its trade to the EU and the EU stakeholders’ debate on sustainability.
In particular their rapid expansion and the increase in large scale modern farms and processing plants, is affecting the small farmers and SMEs, with relevant negative consequences in terms of conservation and management of natural resources, Global poverty, Public health, Social inclusion, Demography and Migration. Hence, supporting a sustainable development in the soy and beef chains connecting Latin America and EU represents a substantial contribution to the realization of the joint political commitments above listed.
When looking at the global market an increasing trend in the demand for sustainable soy and beef is emerging. UNILEVER, for instance sources 30% of its agricultural raw materials sustainably. It aims at reaching 100% sustainable soybean procurement by 2014 and 100% of sustainable raw material by 2020.
Mc Donald’s is a founding board member of the Global Roundtable for Sustainable beef and also participates in sustainable beef initiatives in Australia, Brazil and the U.K.
This new trend can be related to a positive circle involving NGOs, investors, large companies and media. A positive reputation on sustainability for the food companies, granted by and NGOs and media positive attitude and communication, improves their access not only to the final consumers but also to the financial markets. “Investors value companies' ability to deal with the biggest business challenge of the 21st century: sustainability” (T. Kolster, Guardian Professional, Wednesday 6 March 2013).
Constraints to sustainable development
The present state in the beef and soy chains’ sustainability development, in particular the possibility to jointly improve sustainable soy and beef’s supply and demand, is constrained by different factors.
- The lack of an agreed sustainability definition and sustainability analytical frameworks is influencing the still not clearly defined EU policy oriented towards sustainability. EU sustainability-related trade regulation is spread into different measures.
- At a global level large food companies, international governmental organizations, NGOs, research centers, standard developers, local governments are increasingly involved in the sustainability debate creating a complex network of relations and a still quite confused set of regulations and sustainability related certification schemes.
- This complex multi-stakeholders’ approach to sustainability is generating relevant barriers to entry the sustainable soy and beef markets, mostly to the weakest links in the food chain.
- The delay in providing a more favorable set of rules is jeopardizing the development of a sustainable food market, in the face also of a rising demand for Latin American “conventional” soy and beef from less demanding non-EU countries, which can reduce the supply of sustainable food for the EU markets in the next years.
- There is a lack of technical and managerial solutions able to lower costs and cultural barriers, especially for small farmers and SMEs;
- A lock of research and training supporting new knowledge transfer among the food chain stakeholders and research institutions;
- Little consumers, civil society and policy makers’ awareness and info on soy and beef sustainability.
- There is a lack of integrated strategies for reducing the negative socio-economic and environmental impacts of soya bean and beef chains.
Research Questions
These issues generate a set of relevant research questions. Answering to these questions can effectively support a sustainable food chain development.
- How clear is the perception of sustainability problems in the EU and LA?
- How the existing environmentally and ethically oriented food quality standards effectively increase sustainability?
- How can the different EU and Latin American stakeholders reduce the technical barriers to trade for sustainable products?
- How can the weakest links in the soy and beef chain (smallholders, SMEs) be involved?
- How can the research institutions provide effective support to the development of sustainable food chains able to tackle the challenges involving the environment, societies and economies of Latin America and EU
- How can SALSA create the conditions to harmonise the apparently contrasting goals of economic development, competitiveness and environmental burden reduction by developing knowledge based solutions benefiting both EU and Latin America?
Objectives
To answer these research questions SALSA aims at a) developing monitoring tools based on a Life Cycle thinking approach suitable for integrating ethical, environmental and socio-economical impacts in one consistent model; b) providing sustainable solutions (strategies and processes) suitable to support farmers and SMEs relations within entire food chains.
In particular the SALSA overall objective is to contribute to tackle Latin America countries eco‐challenges (deforestation, CO2 emission, reduced biodiversity, water–air‐soil pollution, reduction in food security) related to farms productions and food chains relationships between Latin America and EU and enhance the food chains value added and competitiveness.
SALSA specific objectives are:
• Increase of the Latin American and EU food chains social, environmental and economic sustainability (WP3; WP4; WP5)
• Improvement of the SMEs and small agro‐food producers access to local and EU sustainable food export markets (WP2; WP4; WP5; WP6)
• Enhancement of the food chains agents’ relationship efficiency, both in terms of knowledge exchange and efficient trading relations, in Latin America and EU (WP6; WP4; WP5;
• Promote the EU and Latin American policy makers quality and quantity in the information, support education and raise the awareness of the needs for an effective food policy oriented to sustainability (WP7; WP5; WP2)
• Promote the EU and Latin American consumers and civil society quality and quantity in the information, support, education and raise the awareness on sustainable food production and consumption impact on their living conditions (WP7; WP5; WP2).
Project Results:
Description of the main S & T results/foregrounds.
Work Package 2: Standards adoption and opportunities for environmentally sustainable food chains.
The WP2 objective was to assess opportunities for SMEs to increase their chances to enter the local and global markets by complying with standards and regulations.
To this end WP2 improved, at a first stage, the knowledge of the normative framework related to the sustainable development of soya and cattle/beef trade between EU and Latin America. A Normative Database was developed to systematize and select standards and trade regulations according to their specific sustainability performance and to provide additional information in the form of short descriptions and links relevant for soy and beef value chain. The Normative Database was developed by FiBL in collaboration with UNIBO, ProQ, UFV, EMBRAPA, RTRS, BEMEFA and UNAM. More than 300 international private standards and regulations from Europe, Argentina, Mexico and Brazil are included. The Normative Database gives an overview of different sustainability requirements and the opportunity to choose standards according to their potential to improve the competitiveness of different sustainability performances. It is the first collection of sustainability standards and regulations that are focused on the soy and beef supply chains between LA countries and the EU. Additionally, Factsheets of Private Standards were developed in collaboration with the International Trade Centre. ProQ developed functionalities to provide the Normative Databases and factsheets to different stakeholders. The Databases and Standards Factsheets are available on the e-Platform www.salsaplatform.eu since the end of October 2012.
In a second stage WP2 assessed the non-business stakeholders’ preferences and awareness on sustainability aspects of the soy and beef supply chains through an online survey. The opinions of 48 non-business-stakeholders from Latin America countries and the EU were collected. The survey was addressed to potential respondents working for environmental, social, consumer and animal welfare NGOs, agricultural, environmental and health policy ministry, environmental and/or social standards developer institutions, fair trade organizations, farmers’ and organic farmers’ associations and research. The respondents were asked to rank different environmental, economic and social impacts and the priority with which they should be addressed to support a sustainable development strategy. Overall, the results reflect a more holistic conception of sustainability by the EU stakeholders as opposed to those from LA. According to the non-business stakeholders in LA countries and the EU, one of the most important barriers to the implementation of sustainability initiatives was the inefficient and insufficient regulatory framework. Policy makers are considered as the actors with the highest capacity for removing many of those barriers. On the other hand the economic interest of big GM seeds providers, transnational retailers and big trading companies is considered as a major obstacle to the implementation of effective sustainability measures.
A desk survey (literature review) was carried out considering studies on the demand and market situation of sustainably produced soy and beef as well as on consumers’ perceptions, preferences and willingness to pay towards certain aspects of sustainability, with a specific focus on environmental aspects. The constraints and necessities that require consideration in communicating sustainability aspects to the end users were also described. The review primarily highlights studies on sustainability aspects of meat / beef, due to a lack of available studies on soy. It also gives a broader view on aspects of sustainable food. Generally, health and environmental concerns gained in importance in the purchase decision of consumers, especially in European countries. Animal welfare is an important motive for the purchase of beef and often directly linked to a better food quality; interests in e.g. in the origin of the meat, the feeding of animals (especially GMO-free fed) and the raising conditions of animals are growing. However, animal welfare issues are also important due to altruistic reasons, as well as social and ethical. Consumers are willing to pay higher prices if they expect added value, however, the higher price remains as a major purchasing barrier, especially in terms of organic food. ‘Environmentally friendly production’ is also an important purchase motive for consumers. As regards beef, e.g. shorter transport distances for animals as means to reduce the transport times for animals, but also the reduction of CO2 emissions, are considered important aspects. Displaying the carbon footprint on a product was found to be one relevant communication tool for consumers.
In order to gain insights into the preferences and attitudes towards sustainability aspects of the beef and soy supply chain, a consumer survey was carried out in Brazil, Mexico, Italy and the Netherlands.
In the case of the European consumers, aspects of the food supply chain from Latin America exporting to the EU were considered, while the Latin American consumers focused on aspects of the domestic food supply chains. The sample included 824 consumers of which: 522 Brazilian, 140 Mexican, 131 Italian and 71 Dutch. For all the countries, food safety in terms of traceability, quality controls and no residues of hormones, antibiotics or pesticides as well as the taste were evaluated as the most important criteria when buying beef. Generally, social and economic aspects such as fair prices and good working conditions for farmers and the support to the local economy are more important in the opinion of the consumers than environmental issues. The main differences among countries relate to the attitude towards GM food, geographical origin and regional production. While for Italian and Mexican consumers the fact that a product is no-GM is stated as ‘very important’ as a purchasing diver, Dutch and Brazilian consumers consider this as ‘neither important nor unimportant’. This is a surprising result, since according to the literature Dutch consumers were among the most sensitive consumers when it comes to GMOs in food. The relatively small sample could have influenced the answer; on the other hand the respondents belong, in all countries, to the effluent and well-educated ranks of their societies. Not surprisingly regional production turned out to be especially important for Mexican and Italian consumers, while geographical origin is far more important for Italian consumers than for consumers in the other countries.
In a last stage of WP2 the effectiveness of standards adoption and regulations in complying with sustainability and non-business stakeholders’ preferences was assessed. The analysis of standards based on the SALSA Normative Database showed that most of the private standards regulate environmental aspects as well as social impacts. There are also many private standards in place, which establish higher requirements than the legal regulations in terms of food quality (65), traceability (62) and food safety (55). Private standards always have higher requirements in all associated sustainability aspects as well as food safety or quality aspects. Certification to a private standard thus offers interested producers, processors and traders an opportunity to enter the local or global market and to position their products competitively. Law regulations focus on food safety, especially in Brazil and Mexico as well as in the EU. Food traceability plays an important role in countries such as Brazil and in the EU. Food quality is a main parameter of regulation for Mexico. However, almost all legal regulations give very low priority to environmental, social and economic issues. This matches the findings of our survey addressing non-business stakeholders, who reported that regulations are lacking on issues of sustainability and focus more on food safety, traceability and quality. Only very few regulations cover environmental, social, and economic aspects in a comprehensive manner.
A more detailed analysis was carried out for the international standards which proved to be the most interesting in terms of the following parameters: (i) degree of commitment to sustainability, and (ii) degree of relevance for beef and soy, i.e. how strongly they are focused on these production subsectors.
It was found that most comprehensive set of standards for analyzing the contribution to food chain sustainability are ProTerra, RTRS, Naturland (or EU Organic Regulation) for the soy supply chain and SAN Standard (Rainforest Alliance), GlobalGap and Naturland (or EU Organic Regulation) for the beef supply chain. FLO Fair Trade standards were also included in view of their specific social aspects. After the standards selection, a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the standards’ sustainability performance was based on the very recently developed framework for Sustainability Assessments of Food and Agriculture systems (SAFA). SAFA allowed systematically investigating which criteria or rules of the standards can be assigned to the different dimensions and categories of sustainability. The analysis of five standards (ProTerra, RTRS, Naturland, FLO, SAN) showed that possible improvements to the standard should relate to how standards formulate requirements, which in some cases are very vague and need to be made more direct. Among the dimensions of sustainability based on the SAFA framework, ‘economic resilience’ had the highest proportion of missing requirements in its sub-categories with some exceptions such as the Naturland standard. In the category of ‘vulnerability’ the requirements of the standards give little importance to issues such as adaptation to climate change (measures to safeguard livelihoods under climate change), diversification of activities/income sources of the operation in order to ensure economic viability, avoidance of financial vulnerability (liquidity), human resource vulnerability and the vulnerability of production. Most of the standards match the preferences of non-business stakeholders and consumers. However, one of the main issues not covered by two standards (RTRS GM module, and GlobalGAP) is the use of GMOs. GM soy in the supply chain of beef (indirectly by feeding soy) or GM soy production is not in accordance with the preferences of consumers. RTRS, on the other hand, has a special Non-GM module that is part of the Chain of Custody Standard.
Work Package 3: Assessment of sustainability and market performance for the entire EU-LA selected food chains
The overall objective of WP3 is to assess current sustainability and market performance of selected Latin America-EU food chains. The following actions contributed to reach the WP3 objective:
1. Increase the effectiveness of Latin America-EU food chains performance assessment adopting an improved LCA framework (task 3.1)
2. Assess social, economic, ecological and institutional performance of selected Latin America-EU food chains (task 3.2)
3. Identify bottlenecks and improvement needs of the selected Latin America-EU food chains and provide indications to WP4 (task 3.3).
At a first stage (Task 3.1) WP3 integrated the analysis of awareness and preferences on sustainability, started in WP2. This activity was performed in WP3 for practical reasons given the business-stakeholders contacts created to implement the soy and beef chain sustainability analysis. Semi-structured interviews with Latin American and EU soy and beef chain stakeholders were conducted; the focus was on bottlenecks and opportunities, experiences, perception and preferences related to sustainability. The semi-structured interviews were carried out in Argentina Brazil, Mexico, Hungary (Campden BRI), Italy and Belgium and at the seventh Round Table on Responsible Soy (RTRS) conference in London on May 2012 (RT7). The interviewees included the main business stakeholders in the soy and/or beef market at national level, as well as relevant actors in alternative chains (organic, non-GM, etc.).
To integrate the results of the sustainability assessment of the beef and soy chain in task 3.2 and thus implement task 3.3 more detailed interviews related to the preferences of LA-EU food chain stakeholders towards specific sustainability indicators were performed.
A dual approach was followed. On the one hand, the preferences of stakeholders have been measured through a web-based Multi-Criteria-Analysis (MCA), in which respondents were asked to weigh different sustainability categories, sub-categories and strategies to cope with sustainability. In total respectively 76 and 57 people filled in the online soy and beef survey. On the other hand, a discourse analysis to explore and contextualize the MCA results to support their interpretation was performed.
The discourse analysis produced some very interesting insights in the perception of soy stakeholders towards sustainable chain management.
Business stakeholders generally acknowledge the need to address social and environmental problems. A broad reformist discourse was followed, reflected by the business stakeholders’ pragmatic market-based solution and compromise between economic growth, competitiveness and better social and ecological performances. The issue of global food security and the growing dominance of the Asian market for soy are referred to in the process of negotiating sustainable principles and indicators. This might soften the sustainability demands, which have strong roots in Europe, in favor of more traditional aspects of quality. European business stakeholders experience decreasing deliberative power to make strong sustainability demands, while being confronted with critical civil society groups, criticizing the mainstream soy complex for a wide variety of reasons. Business stakeholders invest in CSR, but are reluctant to communicate on specific details of the soy complex. Communication towards consumers and civil society has been left to NGOs and business stakeholders themselves. Appropriate communication through credible communication channels on issues related to the soy chain, understandable for a large public, would help to demystify the complex issues related to soy and soy-related products, so consumers and citizens can make informed choices.
The analysis of the web-surveys (MCA) allowed for the integration of the weights of the different stakeholders into the performance assessment of the representative soy and beef chains (task 3.2).
In general it can be stated that Latin American stakeholders reported significantly higher scores than European stakeholders, both the whole group and the business community. Furthermore the social component is perceived less important in Europe when compared to Latin America. The latter perceive all sustainability dimensions in the same way and hence do not have a distinct preference for one or other sustainability pillar. If we compare the specific sustainability dimensions categories, we see that European soy stakeholders gave a higher weight to air pollution and economic vulnerability, while Latin Americans are more concerned about soil degradation, national economic development and working conditions in the soy chain. European stakeholders in the beef chain give higher weight to animal welfare and economic vulnerability while Latin American stakeholders give higher weights to local economic development.
In the final stage these results are compared with the results of WP2, where FiBL carried out a survey with non-business stakeholders on sustainability in the soy and beef chain. These results are integrated in task 3.3 where recommendations towards WP4 are formulated.
In Task 3.2 based on the results of task 3.1 and WP2, sustainability indicators have been selected from the FAO-SAFA list of impact categories and indicators and tailored analytical framework was defined to suit the needs and expectations of the soy and beef chains stakeholders in their different contexts. Quantitative indicators, measured adopting a life cycle approach, have been chosen and a data inventory was performed. To improve the range of information available on sustainability performances and to allow for a better interpretation of the results, the core framework of quantitative indicators was integrated with qualitative sustainability indicators. A further selection of the quantitative core indicators was performed through a literature review, based on the indicators relevance, and the consideration of trade-offs between quantity of indicators and feasibility of data collection. The same considerations held when choosing the soy and beef production systems and the systems’ boundaries; their choice was discussed between the Latin American and EU SALSA partners in order to find a balance between feasibility of data collection and relevance of the production systems for the current LA-EU trade.
The core indicators were assessed adopting LCA techniques and cost-revenue approaches, price volatility assessments and scoring systems.
Extension of the framework was based on the results of the stakeholder interviews and the SAFA guidelines set by the FAO. Hence, a number of indicators were added, including governance indicators, and other qualitative social and economic indicators. Beside the main LCA, an analysis of the resilience of soy producers in Argentina was carried out to test its capacity to integrate the LCA results interpretation by supporting institutions, and particularly policy makers, in identifying the main characteristics of rural communities helping the change process towards sustainability. A quantitative analysis on the key factors influencing the business relationships in the beef/soy supply chains is currently being tested in order to: 1) find out which types of business-to-business relationship are dominant; 2) identify key factors that influence a successful relationships between businesses.
The analytical framework has been successfully deployed to collect data on the representative soy and beef chains involving LA-EU relations.
The quantitative LCA considered soymeal and beef exported from Brazil to the European feed industry, soybean exported from Argentina to EU, and beef for the internal Mexican market. This choice was justified by the necessity to also consider countries where the internal consumption can have a more important role in a sustainable development than export. The sustainability performance of GM, non-GM and organic soy production systems have been assessed and, when possible, also differentiated between smallholders and large companies. The system boundaries for beef start from on organic, conventional and integrated farms, and consider further stages of the chain until the shipping of bone-free meat to Europe, with the exception of Mexico where the analysis considers only the internal market, including the following phases: farm (breeding, pre-fattening, fattening), processing, retailing and market for Veracruz and Tabasco, while a two- stage beef production including calves production units (Tabasco) and finishing units (Texcoco) were considered. The functional units are: 1 ton of exported GM, non-GM, and organic soybean meal for Brazil, 1 ton of soybean for Argentina and 1 one kilogram of boneless meat for Brazil and Mexico. The primary data collection for the core quantitative indicators was performed by contacting the SALSA partners in Mexico (Veracruz, Tabasco and Texcoco), Brazil (Parana and Mato Grosso do Sul states) and Argentina (Pampeana and Noroeste regions). Secondary data were collected from databases (EcoInvent, literature, CBOT, Index Mundi) to fill the gaps in primary data, and increase the accuracy of the quantitative models. Semi-structured interviews with academic, non-governmental, governmental and business experts were carried out for the domestic beef supply chain in Mexico, for the soy supply chain in Brazil for the soy supply chain in Argentina. The aim of the interviews was to support the results’ interpretation in terms of defining hot spots, bottlenecks affecting the sustainability in the beef and soy chains and provide improvement options to be tested in WP4.
The quantitative LCA results showed that the choice of indicators provided a broad range of relevant indications to the Brazilian GM, non-GM and organic soy production chain actors and other stakeholders. Even if the results cannot be considered statistically significant they are associated to production systems where the technologies adopted and the physical and social contexts show very little variability, with the exception of the transport distances from the farms to the processing plants and ports. The multidimensional character of the SALSA sustainability analysis provided a complex set of results where trade offs between different sustainability indicators emerged. It showed how the interaction between social, economic and environmental aspects need to be carefully monitored when defining sustainability strategies for a food chain business context and/or comparing different production systems.
In Brazil the integrated sustainability performance of the soy chain showed better results for the organic system compared to GM and non-GM systems, when it comes to environmental and economic performance. Though, due to lower yields, organic soy consumes more land compared to the two other types, confirming previous studies in other contexts. When addressing working conditions (especially workers health environment) organic agriculture scores better when compared to conventional systems. Considering the economic viability, energy usage and water consumption, organic farming is clearly more sustainable than GM and non-GM soy production.
With regard to soybean chain sustainability in Argentina the results confirmed the centrality of the farm level as far as the environmental sustainability is concerned and the importance of the transport of soybean to the Argentinian port. The main problem related to export to EU is a logistical one, related more to inefficient transport and ports infrastructures, but not to their carbon footprint. Argentinian soy environmental sustainability performances in terms of energy consumption and water consumption are basically better than those from the Brazilian farms due to the higher need for P fertilizers in Brazil. The other environmental, economic and social indicators are very similar to the Brazilians. Given the relatively low variability in the technical and economic parameters of GM soy production in large farms the indications even if coming from a non representative sample can anyway be considered as an interesting starting points for further analysis.
When addressing the resilience of rural communities in the Pampean and Noroeste regions of Argentina interesting results emerged where the high resilience of these communities makes it relatively easy to adopt policies oriented towards the shift to more sustainable practices in the soy cultivation. Differentiate the soy production should be in fact advisable in the face of the high dependence on GM soy of the entire social and economic structure of Argentina.
With regard to the beef chain in Brazil, preliminary results showed that water consumption and energy consumption per kg of fresh boneless beef is lower in an organic system than in a conventional system. When considering the animal welfare, organic farming is perceived as more animal welfare friendly than other systems. So far organic farming show better performances compared to conventional systems. However, it needs to be recognized, again, that organic farming depends on the natural processes of ecosystems, therefore, presents particular risks. Organic cattle farming needs high capacity building and special management strategies to prevent animal and crop diseases without using preventive and curative antibiotics, or chemicals for crop protection. Regarding the integrated crop cattle farm, the integration can greatly improve the productivity of a system by improving carrying capacity and providing higher quality feed, i.e. as crop residues provide better feed quality than grasses, cattle grows faster and the lifespan of slaughtering decreases considerably.
The results of the expert-interviews on the ‘extra’ indicators show the contested nature of both the concept of sustainability and the selected qualitative indicators used for evaluating, scoring and measuring sustainability. Because of the comprehensive nature of the analysis, we will only give a selection of some interesting results. It was stated that both soy production and cattle ranching has at least an in-direct impact on biodiversity through the expansion of land the remarkably high consumption of pesticides and the opportunistic behavior in the soy and beef chain. Current high market prices for soy may favor a short-term economic perspective rather than a long-term holistic sustainability approach. According to some experts there is a growing problem of resistant weeds in GM soy fields in Latin America and there is currently a large gap in legislative context in Brazil vs. Argentina. Waste management is still a problem in Argentina, where especially the collection and management of agrochemicals and empty containers is problematic in several regions. There seem to be clear opportunities for product differentiation and market segmentation to increase the added value of beef products in Brazil and Mexico. Soy meal (for the feed industry) is mainly a bulk product and opportunities for product differentiation are less obvious. A number of factors including, volatile market prices of soy, critical transportation issues in Brazil and unreliable export policies in Argentine, are typical for the speculative character of the LA-EU soy chains and the often-opportunistic behavior of its participants. Monitoring working conditions in Latin America is still problematic, because of the lack of registered data, especially in the informal sector and the smaller companies. Moreover the experts stated that especially in the LA soy sector, the role of smallholders is contested as the mainstream trade of soy is very much directed at economies of scale and opportunities for alternative marketing systems are often hindered by high transaction costs and costs for segregation and transport. While organic soy production may offer opportunities for smallholders, both stringent EU requirements (e.g. on the tolerance level on GM contamination) as well as the current global transportation and market design do limit these opportunities.
As for Mexico the sustainability assessment for beef was conducted by adapting the indicators’ choice and their measurement to different contexts and production systems representative of the Mexican beef sector. The first analysis relates to the comparison between intensive and extensive Beef Supply Chain in the area of Veracruz and Tabasco. The system boundaries included: growth and development (G&D), pre-fattening (PrF), fattening (Fat), transformation (Tr) and market (Market).
The main results show that in the intensive systems and within this, the G & D herd, used up more resources and produced more emissions in the categories of climate change impact and human toxicity, than the extensive production systems, where the G & D stage provides the greatest environmental impact. In both production systems enteric methane is the main contributor to climate change, followed by a substantial contribution by nitrous oxide from manure biodegradation. The fattening process is the one that least contributes to acidification and to climate change. Fattening produced the lowest contribution to acidification in both chains. Pre-fattening shows the lowest impact on human toxicity in both production chains. In the intensive production chain, fattening is second to G & D for human toxicity emissions. In the extensive production chain G & D comes first and commercialization second in terms of human toxicity emissions.
The second context is characterized by a two- stage beef production including calves production units and finishing units placed in two regions of Mexico. A region with preponderant livestock activity, Tabasco, has been chosen for calves production units while Texcoco, in the Estado de Mexico region has been chosen for finishing units. The system boundaries for the calves production units included based feed-grass tropical unit where grassland is the main source of diet for breeding and pre-weaning calves herds. The system boundaries for the finishing units included based feed-grain template units, where intensive feedlot facilities were the characteristic system for fatting livestock coming from tropical units. Four environmental impact categories were assessed: Greenhouse Gases (GHG), Acidification Potential (AP), Eutrophication Potential (EP) and Fossil Energy Efficiency (FE).
Findings refer to the main four beef production processes: Feed Production (Feed), Ruminal Fermentation, Transportation (Transport) and Manure Management and Disposal (MM&D). The main results obtained refer to good growing performance in the 120 days fattening period (1.4 kg l.w./day) with different environmental impact categories’ contribution to the overall sustainability performance: for GHG, Feed was the main source, followed by Ruminal Fermentation and MM&D. Contrarily, MM&D was the main source for AP and EP. Meanwhile, for FE, Feed was the main negative contributor and MM&D gave positive credit for FE efficiency. Transport for all indicators provided a marginal contribution to the environmental impact. The main contribution of these assessments to the SALSA project was that MM&D strongly contributes to the beef units’ environmental impact and Eutrophication Potential should be included in future assessments.
The results for the Mexican LCA are reported in Annexes WP3d and WP3e. Further results are reported in a paper on “Environmental Impact Evaluation of Beef Production in Veracruz Using Life Cycle Assessment”, which has been accepted as a poster at the 9th International Conference “LCA of Food” San Francisco, USA to be held on 8-10 October 2014.
The main achievement of this WP3 task was to define an approach where the need to answer the different stakeholders expectations in terms of indicators’ choice and sustainability performance calculations, have been taken into consideration. This provided a sound basis for developing a user friendly and useful tool for the farmers and SMEs in order to assess their sustainability, and compare it to the different stakeholders’ needs.
Concluding remarks: Identification of interesting areas for further research and improvement of sustainable food chains analysis.
The relevance of the farm stage contribution to the overall chain sustainability was confirmed; the internal transport of soy from the field to the local processing plant or to the port is very sensitive to distance and can contribute significantly to the overall GHG. Land consumption and GHG emission for extensive production systems can represent a major problem due to lower yields or lower daily weight increase for beef. Mixed crops and livestock production systems can provide a more sustainable solution than specialized extensive pastures-based farms. These indications, even if outside the core scope of the project (providing analytical frameworks and tools for applying sustainability to food chains), showed how assessing sustainability is still an issue to be handled with care; too many context-dependent variables and interactions are in place when assessing sustainability and interpreting the results; only a fraction of the potential information can be reasonably dealt with. For this reason the SALSA project took into consideration also the different stakeholders views on sustainability to put different contexts and views in the sustainability equation, which is necessarily partially influenced by subjective and/or political perspectives. Claiming for sustainability is still a process in the making and so far a certain amount of guarantee to the consumer can be guaranteed by third party transparent certifications. This consideration relates to another important finding: since assessing and managing sustainability is complex, sometimes influenced by subjective views and expensive, it creates barriers, mostly to smallholders or SMEs, when trying to adopt sustainable practices and certify them. Their difficulty to horizontally integrate and exploit economies of scale, to reduce the barriers to entry in sustainable food markets, makes it easier for larger groups (traders, or processors) to vertically integrate the farmers and SMEs. This reduces their power within the chain. Overcoming this problem is one of the major challenges to the implementation of sustainable soy and beef chains based upon smallholders and SMEs.
Task 3.3:The integrated performance assessment of Latin American-EU food chains is done by integrating the sustainability indicators and sustainability preferences defined in 3.1 and 3.2 and weighing the four sustainability aspects (social, economic, ecological and institutional/governance) according to the different stakeholders views. Great emphasis was put on the integration of the various sustainability indicators by using the method of multi-criteria assessment (MCA). First, by discussing which indicators are most important with regard to sustainability in soy and beef supply chains from Latin America to the EU. Second, by showing which indicators in these subsets are perceived to contribute most to the overall sustainability performance. Third, by providing a perceived performance per indicator and for the chains as a whole, thereby providing insight in the different chains’ improvement needs.
Some of the most relevant improvement needs refer to:
Beef
- Improve feeding techniques and support genetic programs to reduce beef GHG emissions
- Improve grazing beef (mostly organic) daily weigh increase through efficient feeding techniques to reduce the economic and environmental negative impact: GHG emission, energy and water consumption, land consumption, due to a longer life span and higher feed intake for producing 1 kg of beef.
- Test Mixed Crop - forestry - Livestock production systems as possible alternative to extensive specialized beef farms.
- Introduce manure management in the LCA and monitor its performances as they potentially influence the environmental sustainability performances.
- Develop best practices to reduce water use at slaughterhouses: and check for rumen contents and wastewater disposal. Focus on smaller slaughterhouses lacking technologies and skill for efficient water management.
Soy
- Consider the impact of glyphosate resistant weeds when assessing the GM soy sustainability
- Reduce P use as fertilizer in Brazil (will lead to reduced Global Warming and Energy Consumption)
- Increase public research on developing improved seed varieties (non-GM and GM)
- Introduce rotation and other best practices to integrate the no-tillage technique and reduce fertilizers and pesticides use
- Improve organic soy yield to increase land use efficiency and reduce GHG emissions
Soy and Beef
- Improve the transport infrastructure and logistic management
- Extend the analysis of the determinants of food chain coordination and collaboration as a contribution to better soy and beef chain sustainability performance.
- Consider the influence of the social, economic and environmental context in influencing sustainability assessment and management, mostly when choosing the:
• set of sustainability indicators
• production systems to be analyzed
• sustainability policies
• sustainability improvement scenarios.
The MCA questionnaire was also used to assess to which degree the standards, as evaluated in WP2, were addressing key sustainability indicators.
The “MCA assessment of standards” was used in WP4 to feed into the improvement tool.
To finalize the dissemination and use of the SALSA sustainability assessment protocol, a sustainability assessment tool, consisting of a translation of the extended LCA framework provided by WU in task 3.2 was provided. The tool theoretical framework clearly identified the sustainability improvement options defined in task 3.3 contributing to the WP4 sustainability scenario and sustainability impact assessment. Moreover the tool was implemented in WP5 on a web-based platform and used by WP6 for dissemination and training activities.
Work Package 4: Implementation of eco-innovative tools for the selected food chains
The overall objective of WP4 is to develop solutions to improve the sustainability and market performance of selected Latin America-EU food chains.
The following activities have been performed to reach this goal
1. Match the available food chain innovative solutions with the sustainability improvement needs for the selected Latin America-EU food chains detected in WP3 (task 4.1);
2. Define improvement scenarios for the selected Latin America-EU food chains; (task 4.2)
3. Test the impact of the selected food chains improvement solutions in terms of sustainability performance (task 4.3)
In particular in Task 4.1 an integration of the outcomes of Task 3.3 improvement options has been performed; its aim was to provide a framework within which the most relevant improvement options assessment and impacts can be implemented in areas where hotspots have been identified. A literature review with respect to sustainability improvements in the supply chain have been conducted on chain governance, quality management, including hazard based controls and certification schemes, logistics management (network design, inventory management or transportation) and traceability. The results showed that governance contribution to sustainability improvement could be obtained on the base of an extended theoretical framework, integrating the transaction cost economics and the resource based view approaches to the analysis of the relation between governance structure and collaboration along the food chain. A third perspective focusing on collaboration is also considered as a hybrid combination of the above-mentioned theories.
Through these models, an empirical model describing the influence of food chain governance on collaboration in soy and beef food chains can be defined to perform an impact analysis on sustainability improvement measures on the food chain governance and level of collaboration.
The aim of the quality review (Quality Management related to sustainability within the EU) was to identify key quality management issues related to sustainable challenges. Relevant findings were: there is a lack of literature related to sustainable quality management; there is a need for quality management systems within the supply chains to tackle the challenges related to the enhancement of sustainable development. Quality management helps businesses along the supply chains to identify the critical points where environmental, social, economic and governance impacts can be reduced.
The continuous improvement, which is a key issue in sustainability, can be achieved by the use of PDCA cycle in Quality Management.
The logistics review (a review on Quantitative models for sustainable food logistics management) aims to identify key logistics issues, analyze currently available quantitative models and point out quantitative modeling challenges in sustainable food logistics management.
From the logistics review, the significant results are: current food logistics management literature is insufficient to respond to practical needs; better logistics models can improve food safety, availability of food and sustainable and efficient networks which are the current hot spots in food chains sustainable management.
The traceability review (traceability in Food chains – a literature review) introduces the topic of traceability through a discussion focused on the food sector, a list of tracking and tracing technologies and the introduction of a tracking and tracing process model, leading to suggesting a decision model with its complexities and empirical relevance. Significant results:
- Tracking and tracing can only be effective if are implemented at a sector-wide level.
- Emerging technologies in networked devices and functionalities of future Internet can open the way for concepts and system implementations that lower implementation barriers and open opportunities for large-scale acceptance in the sector.
- The effective monitoring of sustainability indicators such as food miles and carbon footprint all depend on the availability of batch-based tracking and tracking schemes inside enterprises but also throughout the food supply chains.
Further insights on the current state of the art in the soy and beef chains in Latin America and Europe have been collected. This was attained by participating in conferences, talking to relevant people in the industry, NGOs and reading specific reports. These insights, together with the results of tasks 3.2 and 3.3 plus the literature analysis in task 4.1 provided the framework and the contents for an excel database, which is part of the WP4 Sustainability improvement impacts assessment model, developed in Tasks 4.2 and 4.3.
Task 4.2 and Task 4.3 defined the food chain sustainability improvement options aimed to improve the value of selected performance indicators for different scenarios for soy and beef chains. In particular (i) implemented a methodology to define improvement scenarios and options for the various soy and beef chains involved, ii) created a list of the most promising improvement options able to influence the performance of particular sustainability indicators, and iii) calculated the impact of these actions (grouped in different scenarios) on the chains sustainability performance. The methodology provides a general framework where the improvement options are defined in relatively general terms and need to be adapted and further specified when applied to different users in different contexts.
These tasks are oriented at providing the different stakeholders a methodology and a related impact calculation tool, allowing for the possibility to adapt the scenario definition and impact analysis to their specific context. Optimization models have been used, where possible, to calculate the overall performance on multiple performance indicators for different scenarios. The cases analyzed to test the methodology and the related impact analysis tools show relevant examples of how the SALSA protocol for sustainability improvement works.
The most important results obtained are: the definition of a first example of an integrated impact assessment tool, involving not only the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainability, but also the governance one; second, by using a relatively simple tool the users are given the chance to appreciate the complex dynamics that a relatively simple improvement action involves (e.g. change the animal diet to reduce enteric methane emission, or modernize the truck fleet); this functionality proved particularly interesting since counterintuitive outcomes often emerged during the testing phase, revealing unexpected trade offs between different sustainability dimensions. Last but not least the context-dependent nature of sustainability emerged and the consequent necessity to define carefully tailored sustainability strategies and support policies.
Details on the Improvement opportunity, scenario definition and impact analysis
Improvements can be applied to many functions involved in the food chain management, previously analyzed (task 4.1) such as the logistics management, the quality management, traceability, information exchange and institutional aspects concerning the chain governance. The improvements were classified according to two concepts, namely improvement opportunity and improvement scenario. An improvement opportunity is a change in a specific element of the Supply Chain scenario (configuration of a network, control rules, etc.) related to a specific business process (e.g. logistics, quality, information or governance) that results in a (potential) improvement of performance.
An improvement scenario brings together multiple (individual and/or disciplinary) improvement opportunities, resulting in specific defined settings of all the elements of the Supply Chain scenario.
A stepwise framework (SALSA Protocol) has been developed to assess the sustainability improvement impacts on the beef and soy chains. Step 1 starts with the selection and definition of the relevant sustainability Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), depending on the chosen strategy. A well-defined set of supply chain KPIs will help to establish benchmarks and assess changes over time. This is done respectively in step 2 (where the current performance is measured) and step 3 (where the performance is benchmarked). The benchmark results in improvement needs, which can be aligned to available improvement options. These are defined in step 4 and assessed in step 5 using sophisticated modeling tools. Finally, redesign strategies can be defined to improve the sustainability performance on the chosen indicators (step 6). After such an assessment, redesigns can be proposed, piloted and finally implemented if they turn out to be a successful business case.
Furthermore, the improvement needs of WP3 have been related to the following four focus areas in the supply chain:
i) Technological area (farm/slaughterhouse/crushing plants)
ii) Logistics area (transportation, storage, allocation, slaughterhouse)
iii) Food quality/safety
iv) Institutional – supply chain governance.
Improvement options are provided within each of the four focus areas, together with an estimation of the impact of an improvement option on the performance of the supply chain.
Finally, the possible implementation of the results of Deliverable 4.2 are described in a conceptual way in the Web based SALSA e-Platform (Work package 5).
Small workshops in Europe (Bonn, Wageningen) have been held to discuss the methodology, the suggested improvement options and the impact calculation to evaluate scenarios. In Bonn, WUR, ProQ, UGent and CBHU were present; In Wageningen, WUR and UNIBO were present. During the dedicated workshop at the General Conference in Argentina (November 22, 2013), key stakeholders determined the most promising scenarios to be implemented in the ICT platform provided in WP5. The dedicated workshop was also used to test the tool. In WP6, the guideline was developed on the operation of the system.
Work Package 5: Development of a web- based platform supporting the creation of sustainable value added food chains.
The overall objective of WP5 is the development of an e-support infrastructure for an efficient and innovative food supply chain management, knowledge transfer, and trade support that builds on the use of web-based support tools and network advisory support systems.
The following activities have been performed to reach the WP5 objective:
1. Adapting the e-Platform to the different countries linguistic, cultural and business’ structural characteristics
2. Extension of knowledge base related to sustainability indicators
3. Improving quality assurance and supporting trade between LA and the EU;
4. Capacity building of SMEs with reference to the web-tools adoption
5. Facilitate the food chain sustainability assessment through web based tools development
6. Facilitate the food chain adoption and management of sustainable solutions
7. Improvement of knowledge exchange between SMEs through e-networking platform
In particular, during the first stage of WP5, related to Task 5.1 an e-Platform framework was prepared were the basic functionalities of the SALSA e-Platform will be accessible in the three different project’s languages (English, Portuguese and Spanish). The functionalities allow for the management of the e-Platform access, the use and content management from individual groups, without central management control. These flexibility features are integrated for supporting platform utilization beyond project duration and make it a tool for communication between advisory groups or focus companies with SMEs or other stakeholders. The e-Platform hosts two well-developed principal types of content: a knowledge base and a set of tools for management support. The knowledge base can be continuously updated and extended by users with appropriate user right. All individual elements of the knowledge base could be accessed through a web link from any other web site. The e-Platform has implemented two different communication interfaces, one for regular users with some utilization routine and a standard web-based interface, accessible also through links from individual web pages run by third parties. The regular users’ interface access is restricted and needs a password. The platform concept allows the creation of many different hierarchies, all guided by password access, defining specific users’ profiles. The other is a web-based interface, which is implemented through a “content management system” that allows users with appropriate rights to adapt the content of pages and the provided links to specific needs. Stakeholders from Brazil have already incorporated country specific content. In response to the specific structures of the soy and beef chains, the platform allows its use in a network scenario where a support group, such as an advisory service or a focus company, supports users with more limited skills. Such a network scenario implementation has been tested in Germany and utilized by South American project partners in an experimental setting.
On the framework of the e-Platform and adaptation of the SALSA knowledge base to Latin-American contexts and the extension of the knowledge base by including sustainability schemes, was performed in Task 5.2. This task involved various initiatives supporting the knowledge base, the platform development and the model developments fit with the project focus and the users’ requirements. The adaptation of the platform structure to the needs of the stakeholders is an ongoing process were feedback have been provided by evaluation groups and users that have been progressively involved according to their interest with the e-Platform content. The Industrial Platform members, the Advisory Board and the people attending the SALSA specific meetings and training sessions have been the most relevant contributors. The task provided extensive input in translations. As far as the extension of the knowledge base is concerned two new databases have been added to the e-Platform. They involve factsheets of sustainability schemes and a database (in Excel format) with detailed specifications of the characteristics of major sustainability schemes and national and international regulations involving soy and beef chains’ sustainability. A third database “Qualint” with detailed specifications of the characteristics of the major quality management schemes, has been incorporated into the project and embedded into a newly developed data management interface for and easy use in decision support. A wiki-type knowledge base was implemented. The wiki is available in English, Spanish and Portuguese. It differs from the well-known Wikipedia being focused on sustainability issues. Enterprises or other stakeholders could integrate a link to the wiki in their own web sites.
A certification audit checklists was also added to the e-Platform, which combined requirements from different domains including quality, environmental, and sustainability issues. The audit tool contains a number of pre-set checklists provided by Global GAP, RTRS and other certification organizations. It also allows the development of enterprise specific checklists that could be defined on the base of requirements set up by trade partners. Latin-American stakeholders considered the audit tool as the tool with the most attractiveness for immediate use in operational quality and sustainability support.
In a next step the e-Platform support to implementing the quality/sustainability and trade communication between stakeholders and soy and beef chain agents was provided (Task 5.3)
A basic version of the web-based toolset for quality and basic sustainability monitoring and management support was defined.
Web-based trade portals adapted to the specific needs of these trade relationships have been structured. As trade communications needs change over time and are different for different scenarios and company needs, a static trade support communication portal or a cluster of such portals was not considered a suitable option with interest for enterprises. It was decided to offer flexible tools for realizing personalized trade communication support portals in response to specific needs.
Building upon the re-organization of functionalities already defined in the e-Platform the structure of this trade communication support portal involves i) fact sheets of sustainability certification schemes ii) results from an LCA calculation iii) results from an audit activity (all implemented in the platform), iv) the description of a process, v) a document with laboratory results or e.g. a video from a production environment (presently demonstrated for Brazilian users). A portal with links to such information can be provided either through a page inside the “content management system”, or through a company individual web page that hosts links to the appropriate information items in the platform. The portal provides the potential for communication quality and sustainability information for Latin American and European customers which are origin-based, product-based (product characteristics), process-based (process characteristics) and enterprise-based (e.g. certifications). The origin-based information involves information on origin as well as on the sustainability status of participating enterprises (eg. GlobalGAP certification).
In Task 5.4 an integration of functionalities for online training into toolset was implemented
Special face-to-face meetings with stakeholders from Latin America, including certification schemes developers, and EU industry associations with SALSA e-Platform development personnel supported the evaluation of demonstration and training approaches and subsequently led to the training course discussed in task 5.8 and the development of the extensive online user manual available on the platform.
Tasks 5.5 5.6 and 5.6 concentrated on the extension of the e-Platform toolset for facilitating the chain sustainable management along the chain and integrate them in a stable and suitable format for the users’ adoption.
The newly integrated tools provided in the platform include the Life Cycle Assessment tool provided by WP3 and the LCA-based sustainability improvement options impact assessment tool, provided by WP4.The tools provided by WP3 and WP4 were developed by the partners on an EXCEL format and are being accessed through an appropriate platform link, as is common with EXCEL models. Details of the tools have been discussed in WP3 and WP4. However, within the project it was concluded that an EXCEL model might not appropriately meet the needs of SMEs, as less skilled users sometimes can find it difficult to manage. It was therefore decided that the models should be available in a user-friendly, stand-alone computer program integrated to the e-Platform. The software for the LCA model (WP3) was finished, tested and used in various training sessions with data referring to Brazil. The software for the planning model (WP4) was completed by the end of May. EXCEL based models for Argentina and Mexico are linked to the platform since the extra-amount of time and resources made it impossible to include also these models in the e-Platform integrated software.
The integration of the different features in the e-Platform defined an organic and complex structure whose ambition is to be flexible enough to support readjustments in response to changing needs. The present content in knowledge provision and tools for management support evolved through partner experience and communication with stakeholders. The e-Platform audit scheme is an example of a tool that evolved from direct stakeholder communication and evaluation. As content and especially tools, as well as communication interfaces, have been tested with Latin-American experts and members of the industry platform plus other business stakeholders since about one year, the platform tool is ready to be used in a beta-testing version.
A final testing phase was performed in WP6 supported by Task 5.7 where SMEs clusters were organized to this end. The project identified 4 clusters with cluster managers from project participants for experimental implementation in beef (Brazil, Mexico) and soy (Brazil, Argentina). It was realized that the implementation and use of such a platform in a routine manner into enterprise operations beyond the initial use, takes time for adoption and will have to continue beyond the duration of the project.
In Task 5.8 training courses for cluster managers were developed, based on the tools provided in Task 5.4. The course structure and contents were first delivered during a training workshop in fall 2013 for users coming from Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina, responsible for introducing the platform in their respective countries. The training material was further developed (and translated) in Spanish for use in training events in Mexico. During the Buenos Aires specific meeting another training session was organized to this end. The course has been integrated into a web-based tutorial.
Work Package 6: SME-oriented training and exploitation
The overall WP6 objective is to support the exploitation of the SALSA results for the business partners through education and knowledge exchange. To this end the following activities have been performed:
1. Provide education and trainings for mediators and SMEs to develop local capacities in supporting the implementation of sustainable food chain
2. Support to knowledge transfer and exchange
3. Support the adoption of the tools developed within the project (tasks 6.1; 6.6).
In Particular the firs set of activities involved the setting up of an Industry Platform (IP).
At first an IP recommendation was developed to support the knowledge transfer activities in the project, the information exchange and for supporting relationships among different institutional stakeholders, farmers/SMEs, policy makers, extension services, civil society, and consumers. In particular a core group of stakeholders was involved in the research process to exchange information between the SALSA consortium and IP aimed at adapting the SALSA results to a business environment by accessing confidential information on the project’s results and tools.
The recommendations provide the principles of communication of research results for practical users and methods of establishing and operating the Industry platform; they are also based on previous project partners’ experience on an on-going transfer of knowledge to SMEs and small farmers.
Awareness raising workshops were carried out by CBHU (3 in Latin America with the organization of the LA partners and 1 in the EU). These workshops were held in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Hungary, creating the basis for the on-going dialogue among the partners along the soy and beef supply chains in LA and EU including food businesses and researchers. The other aim of these workshops was to identify and discuss the different legal and customer requirements, needs and the expectations of the food chain members and to design the activities for their harmonization in Latin America and EU.
Other National workshops took place in Brazil on the 22nd of October 2012 and Italy, where six national individual meetings were organized by UNIBO from December, 2011 April 2012.
A second national workshop was organized in Hungary on the 2nd April 2014, Mexico (4 events) 1 in Germany and two in Belgium in 2013 and 2014.
Five webinars were delivered by WP6; 3 newsletters were prepared and distributed to the interested partners and the IP members in electronic format in November 2012, April 2013 and December 2013
A handout was prepared and used as a knowledge transfer tool at 6 events.
The process of setting up the IP and the objectives of the Platform were presented on the 16th of January 2013 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, at the SALSA Review meeting.
Presentations were delivered during 12 industry meetings to transfer knowledge to the businesses.
The details on all the dissemination events are shown in Template A2 of the Report.
The national workshops showed the participants’ interest for the expected results of the SALSA project, particularly for the Life Cycle Analysis, databases about the standards, knowledge transfer activities, training materials and training courses. A specific interest emerged on the possibility to access the EU markets from the Latin American food industry representatives, especially beef producers. Sustainability was considered mainly, but not exclusively, as a tool to increase the chances of accessing export markets.
This information has been used as an input for the identification of the potential topics when developing the training material contents. The other benefits of the awareness raising workshops and individual meetings were the identification and involvement of relevant national organizations and experts, able to support the achievement of the project objectives and also help the project focusing on the real priorities of the practical users.
The number of stakeholders contacted, informed on SALSA activities is 540. At least 67 SMEs and 75 associations were contacted. It includes contacts from Germany, Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Argentina, Sweden, Norway, Brazil, Hungary, Mexico, France, Paraguay, USA, India, United Kingdom, Belgium, and Uruguay. The present number of IP members who signed the confidentiality agreement is 11: 4 from Italy, 2 from the Netherlands, 2 from Brazil, 1 from Hungary 1 from Argentina, and one from Mexico. The number of industries interested in the results is much higher. A mix of fear of unexpected legal consequences and of too demanding relations with the project, related to the confidentiality agreement requested to enter the IP, prevented many organizations to enter the IP.
The industry platform has started to operate through emails, newsletters and involvement in the project activities (surveys, feedbacks on the project results).
A database was set and continuously updated in WP6. This database is available at the BSCW platform, a SALSA data repository provided by proQ.
A web-based platform developed in WP5 (SALSA e-Platform) provides individual user accounts and the provision of individualized working environments to the Industry Platform members.
Information and tools have been provided for the IP members through the e-Platform. The members received an online training toolset developed in WP5 to give assistance to the users of the Salsa e-Platform.
The members of the IP were involved in most of the project activities. In particular: in WP2 the members of the IP provided data on chosen standards and regulations; in WP3 provided feedback to choose the field of analysis (products, standards and food chain boundary) and the indicators in the analysis of the performance of the supply chains; the IP also supported the data collection in WP 3.2. (LCA) analysis; in Task3.3 and provided information on relevant aspects of sustainability from their point of view; in WP4 the IP was involved in the selection of the scenarios (WP4.2.) provided support to choose the best scenarios (WP4.3.); in WP5 the members of the IP cooperated in the evaluation of the online training toolset, took part in the clustering activity of WP5.7 and during the training phase (WP5.8.) in utilizing the SALSA sustainability supporting tools.
In a second step of WP6 (Task 6.2) training materials were developed.
The development of 7 training modules was completed. The training materials contain theoretical (methods, slides) and practical part (group exercises and practical examples). Modules: (1) Knowledge transfer (mainly for mediators) (120 slides, 4 group exercises), (2) Organization of training courses (mainly for mediators) (72 slides, 1 group exercise), (3) EU legal and trade standard requirements on traceability, food safety and quality management and sustainability, and voluntary certification schemes (286 slides, 3 group exercises), (4) Measuring chain performance (67 slides, 3 group exercises), (5) Chain strategies (85 slides, 2 group exercises), (6) Application of the integrated analytical tool (56 slides, group exercise), and (7) Application of the integrated operational management tool (37 slides, group exercise). The contents structure was developed based on the partners expertise, the SALSA foreground, and the outcomes of the workshops and meeting held in 6.1. The core training materials were adapted for each training session to meet the specific requirements of the local audience and make them relevant to the specific production systems and general economic and social context in different countries and were revised several times based on the experiences and feedback from the participants. The content of the training materials is summarized in Deliverable 6.3 “Report on staff secondment and delivery of training”. The training modules (3-7) were translated into Portuguese and Spanish for SMEs.
In Task 6.3 Several knowledge transfer tools were developed. They include a Results Summary Sheets (RSS). Initially the method for the preparation of a 1-page summaries on the first practical results of the project was defined. One-page summaries were prepared in WP6 for the SALSA project. The RSS have been distributed to SMEs, small farmers, policy-makers and consumers organizations vie e-mail and directly at different events:
• Campden BRI Hungary Open Day on 16st of November, 2011 in Budapest, Hungary
• National workshop on the 21st of February, 2012 in Budapest, Hungary
• Campden BRI Day on the 12nd of June 2012 in Chipping Campden, UK
• Farmers’ Day (Open Day), on the 14th of June, 2012 in Gödöllő, Hungary
• Farmer Expo (Agricultural Exhibition) on the 17th of August, 2012 in Debrecen, Hungary
• LCA Conference on the 2-4th of October, 2012 in Saint Malo, France.
• Campden BRI Hungary Open Day, 12th March 2013 in Budapest, Hungary
• Campden BRI Day on the 6th June 2013 in Chipping Campden , UK
• Campden BRI Hungary Open Day on the 2nd April 2014, Budapest
An updated version of the Results Summary Sheets (RSS) was developed in 2013.
A 1-page summary is available at the SALSA web site under the “others” section.
Guidelines for use of the SALSA tools. A Guideline was developed in WP6, based on the results of WP3 and WP4. The document includes guidance on the use of 2 tools, allowing the users to perform a first LCA-based sustainability assessment (from WP3 results) and a sustainability improvement options’ impact assessment (from WP4 results), respectively. In a joint effort from WP6 and WP5 the results from WP3 and WP4 have been transferred to the e-Platform, and made available to relatively unskilled end users. The inputs for the definition of the tools structure and content came not only from the SALSA WPs but also to the participation in the testing phase of the ENVIFOOD Protocol; this allowed to compare the SALSA LCA-based decision support integrated tool with the international reference methodology; the aim was to (i) evaluate whether some of the experiences of the SALSA project can be used as an input for improving the ENVIFOOD Protocol; (ii) to check whether the SALSA integrated tool is in compliance with the requirements of a relevant EU sustainability analysis protocol as the ENVIFOOD Protocol.
Practical recommendations were developed in WP6 based on the experiences of the project partners about the improvement options and solutions to enhance cooperation between Latin America and EU. These recommendations are available in the SALSA public Website Results part in the “Others” section.
The recommendations list a series of measure, activities and strategies related to the different dimensions of sustainability and tailored to the various categories of stakeholders involved in food chain sustainability: Standard developers, Policy makers, NGOs, Businesses, farmers and civil society in general.
Several personal visits (28 businesses were visited) were carried out by CBHU, UNIBO, UFV, EMBRAPA, proQ where materials developed in WP6 (hand-out, posters) were used.
In Task 6.4 Fifteen staff exchanges were organized between the EU and Latin American project partners to facilitate the exchange of best practices and common protocols for managing the selected soy and beef food supply chains. The staff secondment allowed the partners to better understand the different countries contexts in the business, research, and general public attitude towards sustainability. It also allowed for deeper understanding of the specific issues related to the research as well as trade and managerial aspects related to the integration of the EU and Latin sustainable soy and beef chains. The experiences collected during the staff secondments supported the further development of the SALSA project, opened new channels for possible future cooperation among the interested partners and helped to create links to promote sustainability along the soy/beef value chains, which improved considerably the quality of the relationships among the European, Brazilian, Mexican and Argentinian partners.
In Task 6.5 training courses have been delivered to Latin American stakeholders
Twelve training courses were delivered in the 3 selected countries (Mexico, Brazil and Argentina) for the stakeholders of the soy and beef supply chains. The “train the trainers” approach was adopted. First the mediators were trained in order to act as local resources for further trainings. A second set of trainings was delivered with the assistance of the trained mediators for small- and medium enterprises (SMEs) to enhance the development of local capacities for the implementation of sustainable food chain approaches. The 7 training modules, developed in task 6.2. were delivered to 215 people at the training courses. Training modules 1-7 were delivered for the mediators, while modules 3-7 were delivered for the SMEs. The trainings showed that sustainability is not a primary concern for small businesses; they are attracted first by the resource efficiency and business growth aspects of sustainability the sustainability performance improvement, mainly the environmental one, should follow as a result of technically and economically sound practices.
In a last step the testing of the integrated tools was performed in Task 6.6. The integrated tools, made available through the e-Platform, were tested by 5 Brazilian institutions related to soybean and beef chains to verify their practical applicability and to collect feedback from the users to enhance the further development of the SALSA software tools. All institution received training on the use of the tools and the e-Platform.
The test, based on the framework described in the normative ISO 25000 series, covered two main aspects: i) evaluation of the tools’ performance and utility, ii) evaluation of its usability. In this way, the full purpose and functionality of the e-Platform could be evaluated by a larger number of users than indicated in the DoW.
Results show that, as a whole, the e-Platform was perceived as useful and well constructed for its purpose, being a robust, complete and safe tool for supporting sustainable development of SMEs and farmers, among other stakeholders of the beef and soy chain. A report was prepared on D6.4 “Report on testing of integrated tools: Report on the results obtained by the test of Integrated analytical and management tools adopted by the food chain stakeholders, provided by the WPs 3, 4 and 5”.
Work Package 7: Dissemination and education strategies
The overall WP7 objective is to define and implement strategies of education and dissemination of SALSA results targeting both EU and Latin America stakeholders. The objective was achieved by
1. Disseminating the Salsa results and raise public and policy makers awareness
2. Supporting the non-business stakeholders education on sustainable food production and consumption.
These two activities have been implemented at a first stage by developing brochures and multimedia documents allowing the public not directly involved in the soy and beef chains management to access relevant information on such a complex issue. In particular a SALSA public web site is available at the following link: http://www.salsaproject.eu. The web site consists of two main different sections: The Project and Results. In the Project section the project goal, scope, Work Packages and the Expected Results and Dissemination Activities are reported. In the second section Results the actual results available to the general public are being uploaded and provided the general public and stakeholders after the Consortium approval. The Results include
The following sub-sections: Conferences, Papers & Deliverables, Others and Training where texts, pictures videos and presentations can be uploaded.
The web site permits also the inclusion of News, Events where the major news related to the SALSA project activities and the main events (conferences, meetings, seminars) involving the SALSA project activities are reported. The list of Partners, Industrial Platform members, and a Contact section are also in the website, allowing a direct contact between the SALSA consortium members and the public. The SALSA website has been continuously updated with references to the SALSA results available to the general public and other links to resources supporting the general public awareness of what food chain sustainability entails and of the different stakeholders involved in sustainability implementation.
Two brochures for disseminating the SALSA results to the general public have been issued. The two project periods’ results are reported in a format allowing a quick reference to the main outcomes of the project. Providing the necessity to keep some of the results confidential the description is more of a general nature, but also involving significant insights on the most interesting aspects of interest for a group of stakeholders interested in understanding how sustainability is affecting their life, but also understanding how sustainability is perceived and managed in different cultural as well as professional contexts, in EU and Latin America.
In order to support the Brochures and multimedia documents implementation for the dissemination to the public the brochures, in English, Portuguese and Spanish, are available at the SALSA website and the SALSA e-Platform.
Newsletters for the general public were produced and sent to 293 addresses in Latin America and EU. The contacts involve chosen influential individuals related to a personal extensive network. The newsletters kept the public informed on the more relevant development in the SALSA projects and on related news on sustainability in the food chain, with a focus on Soy and Beef.
Along with brochures and multimedia, the SALSA results have been disseminated in a large number of Meeting and Conferences with the goal of raising public and policy makers’ awareness. Key organizations of the soy and beef chains have been contacted and participated in these meeting together with the SALSA staff. The main events where: the two SALSA General Conferences and the three Specific meeting organized in Latin America and the EU (Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Hungary and Belgium). Along with these main events a series of other Seminars, meetings with general public and Policy makers have been organized in Brazil.
Other meetings were held in Passo Fundo (Brazil), Capanema (Brazil), São Paulo (Brazil), Maracaju (Brazil), , Mexico City (Mexico) SALSA Project Sustainability meeting - Mexico city, 14 th November 2013, Athens (Greece), to disseminate the SALSA results to specifically targeted stakeholders.
The SALSA project contribution to the development of sustainable beef in Brazil was also acknowledged in a Book launched during the Exhibition: Mato Grosso do Sul Seen Around the World. The event took place at the United Nations headquarters, New York on March the 13th 2014. Ambassadors of all the countries represented at the UN received one copy of the publication, as a way to spread SALSA results for a broad worldwide audience, reaching important policy makers.
SALSA partner salso participated in Rio+20 in a panel on sustainable agriculture and to the Low Carbon Agriculture Program (ABC Program).
A total of 532 people have taken part in the many events promoted by SALSA. More details on these dissemination activities are reported in Template A2 of the Final Report.
Probably more people have been reached indirectly, since other meetings like the one at the UN Headquarters and at Rio20+ involved a large number of policy makers, producers, academics, and other stakeholders significantly contributing to our project’s activity acknowledgment. Furthermore, in May 2014 (after the project’s end) an event was held at Federal University of Viçosa, aiming to spread knowledge about a new issue of the soybean producers: the Rural Environmental Registration. Approximately 100 people attended this meeting: professors, researchers and students, and this was made possible because of the network built during SALSA.
The personal contact and creation of trust was a key factor to approach the key stakeholders of the chain. The events and meetings organized in Latin America by SALSA Project were very important for its final outcome. From the visits of other SALSA members, to meetings involving stakeholders, these events were crucial for the expansion of the SALSA network and to the feedback of the project’s objectives and goals. Many companies and Brazilian institutions were interested by the programs purpose. This way, the feedback provided could be of greater impact: the social network constructed via meetings, allowed a bigger representation of the soy and beef chains stakeholders points of view.
From the scientific point of view the SALSA results have been disseminated in different scientific conferences in Austria, France, Italy and the US. Seven papers have been published in International peer reviewed journals; one poster has been accepted to an International conference in US and other papers are currently in the pipeline. A more detailed list of scientific peer reviewed publications is provided in Template A1.
In task 7.3 WP7 Developed an Inventory of Successful cases of sustainable food chains.
In the meetings and conferences described in task 7.2 a first list of successful cases was discussed; the first visits took place in November 2012. Through FSLA, the UFV team visited the organic soybean producers in south of Brazil. This visit had the objective to collect data to other WP (WP3 and WP4) and also supply material for the inventory of successful case.
SALSA provided a set of cases covering different areas where innovations related to sustainability resulted successful. The countries chosen are Argentina Mexico and Brazil, where the relevance of the outcomes for the SALSA project goals, focused on the eco-challenges for Latin America, is stronger. The example chosen also consider the role of smallholders and SMEs; in many cases their relation with larger companies is described. The study shows how sustainability interacts within a business context. The solutions devised include the implementation of good agronomic practices, as well as innovative technical and management solutions applied to the different stages of the beef and soy chain, tailored to the companies’ context.
The case study approach provided useful in understanding the complex interactions and the important role of human resources in developing successful sustainable solutions within a business environment. Moreover the chain approach emerged quite clearly as a necessary step in understanding and managing sustainability and its complexity. Very often the companies analyzed implemented solutions oriented to vertically or horizontally coordinating the different actors of the chains in which they were involved. Certifications according to sustainability-related standards are always adopted as market access’ enablers for sustainable products. These results support the fact that implementing solutions able to improve the food chain sustainability requires relevant economic, technical and human resources to face the high transaction costs involved.
This implies the necessity for SMEs and smallholders to coordinate their actions and reach the (internal or external) economies of scale necessary to improve the sustainability of the food chains. In our case studies most of the times the presence of a dominant actor in the chain (usually a large company) acted as a facilitator for the SMEs and small farmers access to the demanding market for sustainable and high quality soy and beef, supporting the findings of other authors’ when analyzing the Brazilian beef chain (Marques Vieira L., Traill W.B. 2008).
These outcomes provide the SALSA project a relevant contribution in defining the improvement scenarios in WP4 and the training modules in WP6. The important role entrepreneurs played in successfully creating and/or adopting sustainability solutions, can be of interest for the policy makers when developing sustainability policies for the food chains (WP7). Policies stimulating sustainability not only as a “cost” but also as an opportunity for increasing the businesses competitiveness can push creative and committed food chain agents’ to improve their companies’, and/or the entire food chain’s, sustainability.
In the last stage of the project (Task 7.4) an educational oriented forum was set up in WP6.
The education forum, defined during the SALSA project, is based on a network of several stakeholders, mainly from Latin America. They had the opportunity to understand: a) the EU expectations and strategies in relation to the implementation of sustainable food chains; b) the complex interaction among the different indicators and dimensions of sustainability; c) possible strategies to improve the food chains sustainability and their competitiveness in a global market.
A web structure was developed in the e-Platform (WP5) and the SALSA network members are using it. All partners who have been working in the SALSA project were added to the Forum and invited to feed and participate to discussions. Two discussion topics were created. One of them is about the Brazilian Soybean Moratorium, which aimed to stimulate discussions about issues such as reducing deforestation, sustainable production, benefits of legislation, among others. The second topic was made up to discuss sustainable practices applied to food chains, and for sharing success cases between the Salsa Project partners. The link to the forum is: www.salsaproject.eu/forum.
Potential Impact:
Potential impact of the project .
Overall impact
The project complex structure provided results in terms of research and dissemination activities whose overall potential impact will be the enhancement of the soy and beef food chain important contribution to an increased EU and Latin American social, economic and environmental sustainability.
The Latin American countries sustainable development is in fact strongly influenced by soy and beef production; they are shaping not only the environment, but also the society and economy, as a consequence of the fast growth of these productions and of the related chains. In the EU demand for beef and soy will be more and more related to import from non-EU countries, but beef and soy sustainability are increasingly questioned from the environmental and social point of view, influencing the decisions of policy makers, industries and consumers’ in EU. Different specific impacts contributed to this positive overall potential impact of the SALSA project. The impacts have been generated by a joint research and dissemination activity within SALSA.
Research results influencing SALSA impact
From the research activities point of view SALSA methods, results and tools, contributed to an enhanced knowledge on monitoring, managing and communicating the soy and beef chains’ sustainability. This knowledge refers not only to sustainability assessment and management tools, but also to a better understanding of how these tools should be operated according to the different stakeholders views and expectations on sustainability. In particular a substantial part of the SALSA research activities results have been organized in the SALSA extended sustainability assessment protocol. The SALSA protocol started from the FAO-SAFA sustainability assessment framework approach; this has been tested, adapted and integrated to specific soy and beef production systems and chains in Latin America. A sustainability assessment model was developed, which provided further insights on the relevance of the integration of different dimensions of sustainability in an LCA-based analysis, and on the implementation of sustainability in a smallholders and SMEs context. In particular the role of governance has been explored, which showed the importance of the transaction costs approach and other approaches to the food chain governance analysis in understanding the influence of sustainability implementation processes on the smallholders’ and SMEs’ access to sustainable markets. In a second stage of the SALSA sustainability improvement impact assessment protocol an innovative application was defined, which can further improve the definition of sustainability strategies in a food chain context, more suitable to the skills and resources of farmers and SMEs. The SALSA sustainability Protocol can be adapted also to other similar food chains, interesting for Latin America and EU, providing a larger potential impact to the main commodities.
Furthermore SALSA defined and information base on the regulatory set for sustainable beef and soy chain management. The data bases on sustainability standards and regulations allowed for a clearer understanding of their present level of compliance in involving the different dimensions of sustainability. Last but not least an extensive analysis of the different stakeholders’ level of awareness and preferences on sustainability provided a sound base for the sustainability performance results’ interpretation and possible improvement strategies. SALSA put sustainability in a multi-stakeholders’ context where the influence on the efficient adoption of technical and managerial solutions is strictly related to the possibility to reduce communication barriers and generate consensus on the visions and main strategies involving the beef and soy sustainable chains development.
Dissemination results influencing SALSA impacts
This involved the dissemination part of the project where the knowledge base and tools provided by the research have been shared through a wide range of activities. They include the definition of web-based sustainability assessment and management tools, scientific papers, presentations, webinars, newsletters, brochures, training courses, delivered at different events and on the SALSA website and e-Platform, plus staff secondment.
From a general point of view one important SALSA impact was the creation of a network of stakeholders involved in SALSA that can contribute to reduce the personal, technical, administrative and cultural barriers constraining an efficient collaborative management of the chains. In particular the creation of an Industry Platform supported the implementation of SALSA tasks and testing of the sustainability solutions devised by the research activity. The mutual knowledge and the collaborative tools generated by SALSA, can increase the capacity building of the different stakeholders involved in the food chain in terms of better knowledge of the regulatory framework and related administrative, technical and socio economic processes involved in sustainable food chains management. This will be particularly relevant for the small family farmers (and their organizations) plus the SMEs in Latin America, but will also reflect upon the policy makers and other stakeholders increasing their awareness of the complexity and far reaching consequences of dealing with sustainability implementation.
Detailed impacts
Each SALSA result influences a broad range of impacts to different stakeholders. The consequences of these impacts generate complex system dynamics, whose logical path cannot be easily described and/or forecasted. The detailed SALSA impacts have been classified according to the different major stakeholders in the soy and beef chains in Latin America and the EU. This choice will involve a certain amount of repetitions in terms of results affecting the described impacts, but we think it improves its readability.
Scientific Community
Promising positive impacts on the scientific community relate to an enhanced collaboration between different scientific disciplines in research, training, sharing information and public education. Contacts with important sustainability research organizations like FAO, the Sustainability Consortium, the COSA consortium, people4earth, ENVIFOOD, have already been established for further improve the research and knowledge exchange on these issues. The international experience, contacts and resources provided by the project seem to have further enhanced the carriers’ development of young scientists, mostly in the soy and beef chains in Latin America.
EU and Latin American and industry
SALSA potentially impacts on the European and Latin America soya and beef industry’s competitiveness by supporting their compliance to sustainability standards and by granting the food chain stakeholders an easier access to information, collaborative tools and strategies, developed by the SALSA project. This will reduce their transaction costs increase the supply of sustainable, high value-added food and feed.
The importers, processors and retailers in the EU and Latin America can use the SALSA tools, knowledge and contacts to promote the sustainability, safety and trade of such products. The impact of SALSA on the industry is supported by the SALSA Industry Platform and the network of stakeholders created during the SALSA project dissemination activities and staff secondment. In particular the exploitation of the SALSA e-Platform potentialities has been tested during the project at different SMEs and specific training activity to relevant companies has been performed within the UFV and EMBRAPA led “SALSA in Company “ initiative.
Latin American small farms and SMEs
The SALSA impact will benefit the expansion of a still absolutely small niche of smallholders and SMEs in Argentina, related to beef and soy production, and a relatively larger number in Brazil and Mexico, by externalizing, or making more accessible to use internally, some of the most complex and expensive activities related to sustainability monitoring and management. SALSA supports the certification, technical, economic and social sustainability performances improvements, adoption of new management tools; this allows famers to more efficiently join and participate in the sustainable food chains by increasing the quantity and quality of their production, becoming able to fulfill the requests from the market of sustainable products. The consequent higher returns will increase the economical sustainability of cultivation for small farmers, thus reducing the abandon of small properties and reducing social frictions due to fast urbanization not absorbed by the industrial or services sectors.
The potentiality of this impact is supported by the fact that farmers’ organizations and other SMEs in Latin America, related to the SALSA network, used the SALSA e-Platform functionalities to choose the best certification scheme to adopt for entering the EU markets for soy.
Policy makers, standards developers, and the other stakeholders will be provided with an increased knowledge base supporting their decisions through better information on the different Latin American and EU contexts of sustainability from the technical-economic and regulatory point of view. The stakeholders‘ views and preferences on sustainability provided by SALSA can also enhance the possibility for the policy makers to effectively mediate between diverging views. SALSA project will also impact on the European Food Quality and Safety regulations and standards by crosslinking strategic research priorities and policy recommendations.
The civil society organizations, other international organizations can benefit from the experience of SALSA in the assessment of sustainability and in the central issue of reducing technical, cultural and political barriers between Latin American and EU stakeholders involved in the beef and soy chain sustainability implementation. Their activities can benefit from specific and more detailed info on the sustainability of such important products, and consequently improve the level of effectiveness of the debate with other stakeholders. A virtuous circle can in fact be generated, where more aware stakeholders can provide more effective discussions and solutions for a sustainable development.
Consumers
With regard to the EU consumers and other stakeholders not directly involved in the soy and beef chains, the debate on sustainable food is becoming more and more relevant creating expectations in a large share of the population, policy makers, investors and companies. The consumption of sustainable soy and beef is anyway still stagnant as a consequence of high prices for the feed industry (soy) and consumers (beef) and a relatively inefficient sustainable supply chains management. The potential for SALSA to i) increase the soy and cattle/beef chains technical efficiency, thus reducing their final costs ii) improve the environmental and ethical standards and iii) contribute to an effective dissemination and awareness raising campaign, will reduce the frictions still constraining a virtuous circle where demand increase, can be satisfied by an efficient supply chain management, which in turn stimulates a further sustainable soy and beef demand.
An increased consumption of sustainable soy and beef will also benefit the, societal and economic scenario in the EU. In particular a positive impact of increased sustainable food consumption on health; beside the increased quantity also the sustainable food quality can be increased by supporting sustainable production, transport and processing technologies and best practices; and improved regulatory frameworks (certification schemes and regulations) for the Latin America producers, in order to obtain food complying with the safety and quality standards.
In particular a positive direct impact on animal feed and indirect impact on beef sustainability, will be provided by boosting the use of soya produced with lower quantities of fertilizers and pesticides this will drive to a safer and higher quality nutrients in animal products.
• Main dissemination activities: trainings, conferences, publications, workshops
SALSA Dissemination Activities relate to 101 events and publications, which can be summarized as follows:
• 3 international publications peer reviewed
• 4 papers in peer reviewed proceedings of international conferences,
• 1 non peer reviewed publication
• 11 training courses
• 6 webinars
• 3 Seminars
• 2 Organized Conferences
• 12 workshops
• 13 meetings
• 12 web applications
• 6 flyers
• 2 videos
• 22 presentations,
• 6MSc and 1 BSc theses
• 1 interviews
• 1 TV clips
• 4 Posters
• 5 newsletters
These activities cover a wide geographical as well as thematic range, ensuring a widespread dissemination of the relatively complex and specific issues.
List of Websites:
Project website address: http://www.salsaproject.eu/
Relevant contact details:
Scientific Coordinator: Cesare Zanasi - UNIBO (cesare.zanasi@unibo.it )
WP2 Leader: Salvador Garibay - FiBL (salvador.garibay@fibl.org)
WP3 Leader: Xavier Gellynk - UGent (xavier.gellynck@ugent.be)
WP4 Leader: Jacqueline Bloemhof - WU (jacqueline.bloemhof@wur.nl)
WP5 Leader: Gerhard Schiefer - proQ (schiefer@uni-bonn.de)
WP6 Leader: András Sebők - CBHU (a.sebok@campdenkht.com)
WP7 Leader: Aziz Galvão da Silva Júnior - UFV (aziz.galvao@gmail.com)
Project Manager dr. Alessandro Zamboni - UNIBO (a.zamboni@unibo.it )
dr. Monica Russo - UNIBO (monica.russo4@unibo.it)
The SALSA project’s aim is to tackle the sustainability challenges in Latin America and EU by supporting the creation of sustainable beef and soy chains linking Latin American producers to the EU consumers. Certification schemes played a relevant role as drivers of sustainability in food chains. Twelve partners from the EU and Latin American have been involved during the 36 months of the project. To reach the multiple objectives of the project a broad range of activities have been implemented, which can be summarized into four different categories: 1) Monitor the beef and soy contexts (economic, social, environmental, institutional) in relevant Latin American and EU countries (WP2 and WP3). 2) Provide methods and tools to the soy and beef chain stakeholders to better assess and manage their business performances in terms of sustainability (WP3, WP4 and WP5). 3) Involve the different stakeholders in the process of defining and testing the methods and tools provided (WP6) 4) Raise awareness and improve the dialogue between Latin America and EU on sustainability in the beef and soy chain (WP6 and WP7).
The set of results obtained involve the definition of tools able to support the assessment and management of sustainable beef and soy chains, tailored on the stakeholders’ preferences (WP2, WP3 WP4 WP5 WP6 WP7). In particular: i) a database containing an updated collection of regulations and certification schemes involving the beef and soy chains’ sustainability; ii) software oriented to the life cycle assessment and sustainability improvement options’ impact assessment in the Argentinian, Brazilian and Mexican beef or soy chains; iii) software allowing for the self-assessment of compliance to the main certification schemes, and supporting the correspondent auditing; iv) web-based forums to exchange knowledge on the food chains’ sustainability; v) info repository providing access to relevant information on the food chain sustainability. These tools, all organized in an integrated web-based platform (the SALSA e-Platform) (WP5) are the result of a research activity where: i) the stakeholders awareness and preferences on sustainability have been first assessed; ii) a specific sustainability analytical framework was defined, where the governance dimension is included; iii) relevant case studies in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico were considered, providing a broad range of inputs to the definition of a sustainability analytical framework; in this context the indicators’ choice, their relevance to the specific contexts’ and stakeholders’ preferences, have been taken into account. The SALSA tools and the results have been disseminated and tested in Latin America and EU in a large number of meetings, workshops and conferences where stakeholders, ranging from representatives of relevant international organizations (UN General Assembly, FAO, COSA and Sustainability Consortium) to the local farmers’ organizations, have been involved. A training process, aiming at making the potential users familiar with the SALSA knowledge and tools, has also been carried out; fifteen staff secondments among the SALSA staff members took place. All these activities definitely improved the mutual knowledge of the Latin American and EU contexts and reduced the cultural and psychological barriers among the different stakeholders, starting a more informed and open debate on the best sustainability strategies for the soy and beef chains. In particular the necessity to balance an effective sustainability strategy with the difficulty for the farmers and SMEs to put it into practice in a business environment, emerged. The complexity of involving small producers and industries in sustainability resulted also affected by a still inefficient institutional and market arrangement, unable to reduce the technical, economic and cultural barriers to entry the sustainable food international markets. The necessity of a global debate on sustainability able to level the playing field emerged also as a priority.
Project Context and Objectives:
Project context
Sustainability challenges in Latin America
Latin America countries are facing environmental as well as social and economic challenges to their sustainable development. They involve, deforestation, CO2 emission, reduced biodiversity, water‐air soil pollution and soil degradation, reduction in food security, migration, unemployment, unequal income distribution). The consequent social and economic instability is affecting 75 million small farmers whose products are mainly oriented towards the self-consumption, and internal market. This also negatively affects the food security of the entire Latin American population.
Environmentally and economically sustainable productions adoption for small farmers and food SMEs in Latina America could significantly help reducing these negative impacts.
So far Latin America SMEs and small producers struggle to access the local as well as the export markets with products obtained adopting a sustainable approach (Lopez, 2006). This is due to technical, normative, social, political and economic barriers, among these the cost of complying with national and international quality standards and trade regulations.
Political context
There is an EU- Latin American governments’ mutual interest in developing strategies to tackle Latin American sustainability challenges by promoting social cohesion, economic development, and improving food SMEs markets access.
These strategies are based upon different joint initiatives.
The most important are the Madrid Commitment (2002) and the Rio20+ Summit (2012).
The Madrid Commitment conclusions of the joint EU-Latin America & the Caribbean Summit in 2002, state that “We need to take into account the importance of sustainable development, poverty eradication, cultural diversity, justice and social equity.”
These development goals can be reached through: “…. furthering our integration processes and increasing trade and investment [which] are important means of enhancing access to the benefits of globalization.”
The joint EU Latin American sustainability strategies have been further detailed at the Rio 20+ Summit in June 2012. The following commitments have been made:
- Share best practice and knowledge on sustainable agriculture
- Strengthen relations and information exchange to ensure that any issues that may arise are resolved effectively
- Encourage innovation, as well as increasing productivity
- Trade and technical working groups may be set up by the end of the year, or early in 2013
These joint commitments are consistent with the EU 7 key challenges to sustainability:
1. Climate change and clean energy
2. Sustainable transport
3. Sustainable consumption and production
4. Conservation and management of natural resources
5. Global poverty
6. Public health
7. Social inclusion, demography and migration
Market context
Soy and beef are among the most important products affecting both the Latin American sustainable development, its trade to the EU and the EU stakeholders’ debate on sustainability.
In particular their rapid expansion and the increase in large scale modern farms and processing plants, is affecting the small farmers and SMEs, with relevant negative consequences in terms of conservation and management of natural resources, Global poverty, Public health, Social inclusion, Demography and Migration. Hence, supporting a sustainable development in the soy and beef chains connecting Latin America and EU represents a substantial contribution to the realization of the joint political commitments above listed.
When looking at the global market an increasing trend in the demand for sustainable soy and beef is emerging. UNILEVER, for instance sources 30% of its agricultural raw materials sustainably. It aims at reaching 100% sustainable soybean procurement by 2014 and 100% of sustainable raw material by 2020.
Mc Donald’s is a founding board member of the Global Roundtable for Sustainable beef and also participates in sustainable beef initiatives in Australia, Brazil and the U.K.
This new trend can be related to a positive circle involving NGOs, investors, large companies and media. A positive reputation on sustainability for the food companies, granted by and NGOs and media positive attitude and communication, improves their access not only to the final consumers but also to the financial markets. “Investors value companies' ability to deal with the biggest business challenge of the 21st century: sustainability” (T. Kolster, Guardian Professional, Wednesday 6 March 2013).
Constraints to sustainable development
The present state in the beef and soy chains’ sustainability development, in particular the possibility to jointly improve sustainable soy and beef’s supply and demand, is constrained by different factors.
- The lack of an agreed sustainability definition and sustainability analytical frameworks is influencing the still not clearly defined EU policy oriented towards sustainability. EU sustainability-related trade regulation is spread into different measures.
- At a global level large food companies, international governmental organizations, NGOs, research centers, standard developers, local governments are increasingly involved in the sustainability debate creating a complex network of relations and a still quite confused set of regulations and sustainability related certification schemes.
- This complex multi-stakeholders’ approach to sustainability is generating relevant barriers to entry the sustainable soy and beef markets, mostly to the weakest links in the food chain.
- The delay in providing a more favorable set of rules is jeopardizing the development of a sustainable food market, in the face also of a rising demand for Latin American “conventional” soy and beef from less demanding non-EU countries, which can reduce the supply of sustainable food for the EU markets in the next years.
- There is a lack of technical and managerial solutions able to lower costs and cultural barriers, especially for small farmers and SMEs;
- A lock of research and training supporting new knowledge transfer among the food chain stakeholders and research institutions;
- Little consumers, civil society and policy makers’ awareness and info on soy and beef sustainability.
- There is a lack of integrated strategies for reducing the negative socio-economic and environmental impacts of soya bean and beef chains.
Research Questions
These issues generate a set of relevant research questions. Answering to these questions can effectively support a sustainable food chain development.
- How clear is the perception of sustainability problems in the EU and LA?
- How the existing environmentally and ethically oriented food quality standards effectively increase sustainability?
- How can the different EU and Latin American stakeholders reduce the technical barriers to trade for sustainable products?
- How can the weakest links in the soy and beef chain (smallholders, SMEs) be involved?
- How can the research institutions provide effective support to the development of sustainable food chains able to tackle the challenges involving the environment, societies and economies of Latin America and EU
- How can SALSA create the conditions to harmonise the apparently contrasting goals of economic development, competitiveness and environmental burden reduction by developing knowledge based solutions benefiting both EU and Latin America?
Objectives
To answer these research questions SALSA aims at a) developing monitoring tools based on a Life Cycle thinking approach suitable for integrating ethical, environmental and socio-economical impacts in one consistent model; b) providing sustainable solutions (strategies and processes) suitable to support farmers and SMEs relations within entire food chains.
In particular the SALSA overall objective is to contribute to tackle Latin America countries eco‐challenges (deforestation, CO2 emission, reduced biodiversity, water–air‐soil pollution, reduction in food security) related to farms productions and food chains relationships between Latin America and EU and enhance the food chains value added and competitiveness.
SALSA specific objectives are:
• Increase of the Latin American and EU food chains social, environmental and economic sustainability (WP3; WP4; WP5)
• Improvement of the SMEs and small agro‐food producers access to local and EU sustainable food export markets (WP2; WP4; WP5; WP6)
• Enhancement of the food chains agents’ relationship efficiency, both in terms of knowledge exchange and efficient trading relations, in Latin America and EU (WP6; WP4; WP5;
• Promote the EU and Latin American policy makers quality and quantity in the information, support education and raise the awareness of the needs for an effective food policy oriented to sustainability (WP7; WP5; WP2)
• Promote the EU and Latin American consumers and civil society quality and quantity in the information, support, education and raise the awareness on sustainable food production and consumption impact on their living conditions (WP7; WP5; WP2).
Project Results:
Description of the main S & T results/foregrounds.
Work Package 2: Standards adoption and opportunities for environmentally sustainable food chains.
The WP2 objective was to assess opportunities for SMEs to increase their chances to enter the local and global markets by complying with standards and regulations.
To this end WP2 improved, at a first stage, the knowledge of the normative framework related to the sustainable development of soya and cattle/beef trade between EU and Latin America. A Normative Database was developed to systematize and select standards and trade regulations according to their specific sustainability performance and to provide additional information in the form of short descriptions and links relevant for soy and beef value chain. The Normative Database was developed by FiBL in collaboration with UNIBO, ProQ, UFV, EMBRAPA, RTRS, BEMEFA and UNAM. More than 300 international private standards and regulations from Europe, Argentina, Mexico and Brazil are included. The Normative Database gives an overview of different sustainability requirements and the opportunity to choose standards according to their potential to improve the competitiveness of different sustainability performances. It is the first collection of sustainability standards and regulations that are focused on the soy and beef supply chains between LA countries and the EU. Additionally, Factsheets of Private Standards were developed in collaboration with the International Trade Centre. ProQ developed functionalities to provide the Normative Databases and factsheets to different stakeholders. The Databases and Standards Factsheets are available on the e-Platform www.salsaplatform.eu since the end of October 2012.
In a second stage WP2 assessed the non-business stakeholders’ preferences and awareness on sustainability aspects of the soy and beef supply chains through an online survey. The opinions of 48 non-business-stakeholders from Latin America countries and the EU were collected. The survey was addressed to potential respondents working for environmental, social, consumer and animal welfare NGOs, agricultural, environmental and health policy ministry, environmental and/or social standards developer institutions, fair trade organizations, farmers’ and organic farmers’ associations and research. The respondents were asked to rank different environmental, economic and social impacts and the priority with which they should be addressed to support a sustainable development strategy. Overall, the results reflect a more holistic conception of sustainability by the EU stakeholders as opposed to those from LA. According to the non-business stakeholders in LA countries and the EU, one of the most important barriers to the implementation of sustainability initiatives was the inefficient and insufficient regulatory framework. Policy makers are considered as the actors with the highest capacity for removing many of those barriers. On the other hand the economic interest of big GM seeds providers, transnational retailers and big trading companies is considered as a major obstacle to the implementation of effective sustainability measures.
A desk survey (literature review) was carried out considering studies on the demand and market situation of sustainably produced soy and beef as well as on consumers’ perceptions, preferences and willingness to pay towards certain aspects of sustainability, with a specific focus on environmental aspects. The constraints and necessities that require consideration in communicating sustainability aspects to the end users were also described. The review primarily highlights studies on sustainability aspects of meat / beef, due to a lack of available studies on soy. It also gives a broader view on aspects of sustainable food. Generally, health and environmental concerns gained in importance in the purchase decision of consumers, especially in European countries. Animal welfare is an important motive for the purchase of beef and often directly linked to a better food quality; interests in e.g. in the origin of the meat, the feeding of animals (especially GMO-free fed) and the raising conditions of animals are growing. However, animal welfare issues are also important due to altruistic reasons, as well as social and ethical. Consumers are willing to pay higher prices if they expect added value, however, the higher price remains as a major purchasing barrier, especially in terms of organic food. ‘Environmentally friendly production’ is also an important purchase motive for consumers. As regards beef, e.g. shorter transport distances for animals as means to reduce the transport times for animals, but also the reduction of CO2 emissions, are considered important aspects. Displaying the carbon footprint on a product was found to be one relevant communication tool for consumers.
In order to gain insights into the preferences and attitudes towards sustainability aspects of the beef and soy supply chain, a consumer survey was carried out in Brazil, Mexico, Italy and the Netherlands.
In the case of the European consumers, aspects of the food supply chain from Latin America exporting to the EU were considered, while the Latin American consumers focused on aspects of the domestic food supply chains. The sample included 824 consumers of which: 522 Brazilian, 140 Mexican, 131 Italian and 71 Dutch. For all the countries, food safety in terms of traceability, quality controls and no residues of hormones, antibiotics or pesticides as well as the taste were evaluated as the most important criteria when buying beef. Generally, social and economic aspects such as fair prices and good working conditions for farmers and the support to the local economy are more important in the opinion of the consumers than environmental issues. The main differences among countries relate to the attitude towards GM food, geographical origin and regional production. While for Italian and Mexican consumers the fact that a product is no-GM is stated as ‘very important’ as a purchasing diver, Dutch and Brazilian consumers consider this as ‘neither important nor unimportant’. This is a surprising result, since according to the literature Dutch consumers were among the most sensitive consumers when it comes to GMOs in food. The relatively small sample could have influenced the answer; on the other hand the respondents belong, in all countries, to the effluent and well-educated ranks of their societies. Not surprisingly regional production turned out to be especially important for Mexican and Italian consumers, while geographical origin is far more important for Italian consumers than for consumers in the other countries.
In a last stage of WP2 the effectiveness of standards adoption and regulations in complying with sustainability and non-business stakeholders’ preferences was assessed. The analysis of standards based on the SALSA Normative Database showed that most of the private standards regulate environmental aspects as well as social impacts. There are also many private standards in place, which establish higher requirements than the legal regulations in terms of food quality (65), traceability (62) and food safety (55). Private standards always have higher requirements in all associated sustainability aspects as well as food safety or quality aspects. Certification to a private standard thus offers interested producers, processors and traders an opportunity to enter the local or global market and to position their products competitively. Law regulations focus on food safety, especially in Brazil and Mexico as well as in the EU. Food traceability plays an important role in countries such as Brazil and in the EU. Food quality is a main parameter of regulation for Mexico. However, almost all legal regulations give very low priority to environmental, social and economic issues. This matches the findings of our survey addressing non-business stakeholders, who reported that regulations are lacking on issues of sustainability and focus more on food safety, traceability and quality. Only very few regulations cover environmental, social, and economic aspects in a comprehensive manner.
A more detailed analysis was carried out for the international standards which proved to be the most interesting in terms of the following parameters: (i) degree of commitment to sustainability, and (ii) degree of relevance for beef and soy, i.e. how strongly they are focused on these production subsectors.
It was found that most comprehensive set of standards for analyzing the contribution to food chain sustainability are ProTerra, RTRS, Naturland (or EU Organic Regulation) for the soy supply chain and SAN Standard (Rainforest Alliance), GlobalGap and Naturland (or EU Organic Regulation) for the beef supply chain. FLO Fair Trade standards were also included in view of their specific social aspects. After the standards selection, a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the standards’ sustainability performance was based on the very recently developed framework for Sustainability Assessments of Food and Agriculture systems (SAFA). SAFA allowed systematically investigating which criteria or rules of the standards can be assigned to the different dimensions and categories of sustainability. The analysis of five standards (ProTerra, RTRS, Naturland, FLO, SAN) showed that possible improvements to the standard should relate to how standards formulate requirements, which in some cases are very vague and need to be made more direct. Among the dimensions of sustainability based on the SAFA framework, ‘economic resilience’ had the highest proportion of missing requirements in its sub-categories with some exceptions such as the Naturland standard. In the category of ‘vulnerability’ the requirements of the standards give little importance to issues such as adaptation to climate change (measures to safeguard livelihoods under climate change), diversification of activities/income sources of the operation in order to ensure economic viability, avoidance of financial vulnerability (liquidity), human resource vulnerability and the vulnerability of production. Most of the standards match the preferences of non-business stakeholders and consumers. However, one of the main issues not covered by two standards (RTRS GM module, and GlobalGAP) is the use of GMOs. GM soy in the supply chain of beef (indirectly by feeding soy) or GM soy production is not in accordance with the preferences of consumers. RTRS, on the other hand, has a special Non-GM module that is part of the Chain of Custody Standard.
Work Package 3: Assessment of sustainability and market performance for the entire EU-LA selected food chains
The overall objective of WP3 is to assess current sustainability and market performance of selected Latin America-EU food chains. The following actions contributed to reach the WP3 objective:
1. Increase the effectiveness of Latin America-EU food chains performance assessment adopting an improved LCA framework (task 3.1)
2. Assess social, economic, ecological and institutional performance of selected Latin America-EU food chains (task 3.2)
3. Identify bottlenecks and improvement needs of the selected Latin America-EU food chains and provide indications to WP4 (task 3.3).
At a first stage (Task 3.1) WP3 integrated the analysis of awareness and preferences on sustainability, started in WP2. This activity was performed in WP3 for practical reasons given the business-stakeholders contacts created to implement the soy and beef chain sustainability analysis. Semi-structured interviews with Latin American and EU soy and beef chain stakeholders were conducted; the focus was on bottlenecks and opportunities, experiences, perception and preferences related to sustainability. The semi-structured interviews were carried out in Argentina Brazil, Mexico, Hungary (Campden BRI), Italy and Belgium and at the seventh Round Table on Responsible Soy (RTRS) conference in London on May 2012 (RT7). The interviewees included the main business stakeholders in the soy and/or beef market at national level, as well as relevant actors in alternative chains (organic, non-GM, etc.).
To integrate the results of the sustainability assessment of the beef and soy chain in task 3.2 and thus implement task 3.3 more detailed interviews related to the preferences of LA-EU food chain stakeholders towards specific sustainability indicators were performed.
A dual approach was followed. On the one hand, the preferences of stakeholders have been measured through a web-based Multi-Criteria-Analysis (MCA), in which respondents were asked to weigh different sustainability categories, sub-categories and strategies to cope with sustainability. In total respectively 76 and 57 people filled in the online soy and beef survey. On the other hand, a discourse analysis to explore and contextualize the MCA results to support their interpretation was performed.
The discourse analysis produced some very interesting insights in the perception of soy stakeholders towards sustainable chain management.
Business stakeholders generally acknowledge the need to address social and environmental problems. A broad reformist discourse was followed, reflected by the business stakeholders’ pragmatic market-based solution and compromise between economic growth, competitiveness and better social and ecological performances. The issue of global food security and the growing dominance of the Asian market for soy are referred to in the process of negotiating sustainable principles and indicators. This might soften the sustainability demands, which have strong roots in Europe, in favor of more traditional aspects of quality. European business stakeholders experience decreasing deliberative power to make strong sustainability demands, while being confronted with critical civil society groups, criticizing the mainstream soy complex for a wide variety of reasons. Business stakeholders invest in CSR, but are reluctant to communicate on specific details of the soy complex. Communication towards consumers and civil society has been left to NGOs and business stakeholders themselves. Appropriate communication through credible communication channels on issues related to the soy chain, understandable for a large public, would help to demystify the complex issues related to soy and soy-related products, so consumers and citizens can make informed choices.
The analysis of the web-surveys (MCA) allowed for the integration of the weights of the different stakeholders into the performance assessment of the representative soy and beef chains (task 3.2).
In general it can be stated that Latin American stakeholders reported significantly higher scores than European stakeholders, both the whole group and the business community. Furthermore the social component is perceived less important in Europe when compared to Latin America. The latter perceive all sustainability dimensions in the same way and hence do not have a distinct preference for one or other sustainability pillar. If we compare the specific sustainability dimensions categories, we see that European soy stakeholders gave a higher weight to air pollution and economic vulnerability, while Latin Americans are more concerned about soil degradation, national economic development and working conditions in the soy chain. European stakeholders in the beef chain give higher weight to animal welfare and economic vulnerability while Latin American stakeholders give higher weights to local economic development.
In the final stage these results are compared with the results of WP2, where FiBL carried out a survey with non-business stakeholders on sustainability in the soy and beef chain. These results are integrated in task 3.3 where recommendations towards WP4 are formulated.
In Task 3.2 based on the results of task 3.1 and WP2, sustainability indicators have been selected from the FAO-SAFA list of impact categories and indicators and tailored analytical framework was defined to suit the needs and expectations of the soy and beef chains stakeholders in their different contexts. Quantitative indicators, measured adopting a life cycle approach, have been chosen and a data inventory was performed. To improve the range of information available on sustainability performances and to allow for a better interpretation of the results, the core framework of quantitative indicators was integrated with qualitative sustainability indicators. A further selection of the quantitative core indicators was performed through a literature review, based on the indicators relevance, and the consideration of trade-offs between quantity of indicators and feasibility of data collection. The same considerations held when choosing the soy and beef production systems and the systems’ boundaries; their choice was discussed between the Latin American and EU SALSA partners in order to find a balance between feasibility of data collection and relevance of the production systems for the current LA-EU trade.
The core indicators were assessed adopting LCA techniques and cost-revenue approaches, price volatility assessments and scoring systems.
Extension of the framework was based on the results of the stakeholder interviews and the SAFA guidelines set by the FAO. Hence, a number of indicators were added, including governance indicators, and other qualitative social and economic indicators. Beside the main LCA, an analysis of the resilience of soy producers in Argentina was carried out to test its capacity to integrate the LCA results interpretation by supporting institutions, and particularly policy makers, in identifying the main characteristics of rural communities helping the change process towards sustainability. A quantitative analysis on the key factors influencing the business relationships in the beef/soy supply chains is currently being tested in order to: 1) find out which types of business-to-business relationship are dominant; 2) identify key factors that influence a successful relationships between businesses.
The analytical framework has been successfully deployed to collect data on the representative soy and beef chains involving LA-EU relations.
The quantitative LCA considered soymeal and beef exported from Brazil to the European feed industry, soybean exported from Argentina to EU, and beef for the internal Mexican market. This choice was justified by the necessity to also consider countries where the internal consumption can have a more important role in a sustainable development than export. The sustainability performance of GM, non-GM and organic soy production systems have been assessed and, when possible, also differentiated between smallholders and large companies. The system boundaries for beef start from on organic, conventional and integrated farms, and consider further stages of the chain until the shipping of bone-free meat to Europe, with the exception of Mexico where the analysis considers only the internal market, including the following phases: farm (breeding, pre-fattening, fattening), processing, retailing and market for Veracruz and Tabasco, while a two- stage beef production including calves production units (Tabasco) and finishing units (Texcoco) were considered. The functional units are: 1 ton of exported GM, non-GM, and organic soybean meal for Brazil, 1 ton of soybean for Argentina and 1 one kilogram of boneless meat for Brazil and Mexico. The primary data collection for the core quantitative indicators was performed by contacting the SALSA partners in Mexico (Veracruz, Tabasco and Texcoco), Brazil (Parana and Mato Grosso do Sul states) and Argentina (Pampeana and Noroeste regions). Secondary data were collected from databases (EcoInvent, literature, CBOT, Index Mundi) to fill the gaps in primary data, and increase the accuracy of the quantitative models. Semi-structured interviews with academic, non-governmental, governmental and business experts were carried out for the domestic beef supply chain in Mexico, for the soy supply chain in Brazil for the soy supply chain in Argentina. The aim of the interviews was to support the results’ interpretation in terms of defining hot spots, bottlenecks affecting the sustainability in the beef and soy chains and provide improvement options to be tested in WP4.
The quantitative LCA results showed that the choice of indicators provided a broad range of relevant indications to the Brazilian GM, non-GM and organic soy production chain actors and other stakeholders. Even if the results cannot be considered statistically significant they are associated to production systems where the technologies adopted and the physical and social contexts show very little variability, with the exception of the transport distances from the farms to the processing plants and ports. The multidimensional character of the SALSA sustainability analysis provided a complex set of results where trade offs between different sustainability indicators emerged. It showed how the interaction between social, economic and environmental aspects need to be carefully monitored when defining sustainability strategies for a food chain business context and/or comparing different production systems.
In Brazil the integrated sustainability performance of the soy chain showed better results for the organic system compared to GM and non-GM systems, when it comes to environmental and economic performance. Though, due to lower yields, organic soy consumes more land compared to the two other types, confirming previous studies in other contexts. When addressing working conditions (especially workers health environment) organic agriculture scores better when compared to conventional systems. Considering the economic viability, energy usage and water consumption, organic farming is clearly more sustainable than GM and non-GM soy production.
With regard to soybean chain sustainability in Argentina the results confirmed the centrality of the farm level as far as the environmental sustainability is concerned and the importance of the transport of soybean to the Argentinian port. The main problem related to export to EU is a logistical one, related more to inefficient transport and ports infrastructures, but not to their carbon footprint. Argentinian soy environmental sustainability performances in terms of energy consumption and water consumption are basically better than those from the Brazilian farms due to the higher need for P fertilizers in Brazil. The other environmental, economic and social indicators are very similar to the Brazilians. Given the relatively low variability in the technical and economic parameters of GM soy production in large farms the indications even if coming from a non representative sample can anyway be considered as an interesting starting points for further analysis.
When addressing the resilience of rural communities in the Pampean and Noroeste regions of Argentina interesting results emerged where the high resilience of these communities makes it relatively easy to adopt policies oriented towards the shift to more sustainable practices in the soy cultivation. Differentiate the soy production should be in fact advisable in the face of the high dependence on GM soy of the entire social and economic structure of Argentina.
With regard to the beef chain in Brazil, preliminary results showed that water consumption and energy consumption per kg of fresh boneless beef is lower in an organic system than in a conventional system. When considering the animal welfare, organic farming is perceived as more animal welfare friendly than other systems. So far organic farming show better performances compared to conventional systems. However, it needs to be recognized, again, that organic farming depends on the natural processes of ecosystems, therefore, presents particular risks. Organic cattle farming needs high capacity building and special management strategies to prevent animal and crop diseases without using preventive and curative antibiotics, or chemicals for crop protection. Regarding the integrated crop cattle farm, the integration can greatly improve the productivity of a system by improving carrying capacity and providing higher quality feed, i.e. as crop residues provide better feed quality than grasses, cattle grows faster and the lifespan of slaughtering decreases considerably.
The results of the expert-interviews on the ‘extra’ indicators show the contested nature of both the concept of sustainability and the selected qualitative indicators used for evaluating, scoring and measuring sustainability. Because of the comprehensive nature of the analysis, we will only give a selection of some interesting results. It was stated that both soy production and cattle ranching has at least an in-direct impact on biodiversity through the expansion of land the remarkably high consumption of pesticides and the opportunistic behavior in the soy and beef chain. Current high market prices for soy may favor a short-term economic perspective rather than a long-term holistic sustainability approach. According to some experts there is a growing problem of resistant weeds in GM soy fields in Latin America and there is currently a large gap in legislative context in Brazil vs. Argentina. Waste management is still a problem in Argentina, where especially the collection and management of agrochemicals and empty containers is problematic in several regions. There seem to be clear opportunities for product differentiation and market segmentation to increase the added value of beef products in Brazil and Mexico. Soy meal (for the feed industry) is mainly a bulk product and opportunities for product differentiation are less obvious. A number of factors including, volatile market prices of soy, critical transportation issues in Brazil and unreliable export policies in Argentine, are typical for the speculative character of the LA-EU soy chains and the often-opportunistic behavior of its participants. Monitoring working conditions in Latin America is still problematic, because of the lack of registered data, especially in the informal sector and the smaller companies. Moreover the experts stated that especially in the LA soy sector, the role of smallholders is contested as the mainstream trade of soy is very much directed at economies of scale and opportunities for alternative marketing systems are often hindered by high transaction costs and costs for segregation and transport. While organic soy production may offer opportunities for smallholders, both stringent EU requirements (e.g. on the tolerance level on GM contamination) as well as the current global transportation and market design do limit these opportunities.
As for Mexico the sustainability assessment for beef was conducted by adapting the indicators’ choice and their measurement to different contexts and production systems representative of the Mexican beef sector. The first analysis relates to the comparison between intensive and extensive Beef Supply Chain in the area of Veracruz and Tabasco. The system boundaries included: growth and development (G&D), pre-fattening (PrF), fattening (Fat), transformation (Tr) and market (Market).
The main results show that in the intensive systems and within this, the G & D herd, used up more resources and produced more emissions in the categories of climate change impact and human toxicity, than the extensive production systems, where the G & D stage provides the greatest environmental impact. In both production systems enteric methane is the main contributor to climate change, followed by a substantial contribution by nitrous oxide from manure biodegradation. The fattening process is the one that least contributes to acidification and to climate change. Fattening produced the lowest contribution to acidification in both chains. Pre-fattening shows the lowest impact on human toxicity in both production chains. In the intensive production chain, fattening is second to G & D for human toxicity emissions. In the extensive production chain G & D comes first and commercialization second in terms of human toxicity emissions.
The second context is characterized by a two- stage beef production including calves production units and finishing units placed in two regions of Mexico. A region with preponderant livestock activity, Tabasco, has been chosen for calves production units while Texcoco, in the Estado de Mexico region has been chosen for finishing units. The system boundaries for the calves production units included based feed-grass tropical unit where grassland is the main source of diet for breeding and pre-weaning calves herds. The system boundaries for the finishing units included based feed-grain template units, where intensive feedlot facilities were the characteristic system for fatting livestock coming from tropical units. Four environmental impact categories were assessed: Greenhouse Gases (GHG), Acidification Potential (AP), Eutrophication Potential (EP) and Fossil Energy Efficiency (FE).
Findings refer to the main four beef production processes: Feed Production (Feed), Ruminal Fermentation, Transportation (Transport) and Manure Management and Disposal (MM&D). The main results obtained refer to good growing performance in the 120 days fattening period (1.4 kg l.w./day) with different environmental impact categories’ contribution to the overall sustainability performance: for GHG, Feed was the main source, followed by Ruminal Fermentation and MM&D. Contrarily, MM&D was the main source for AP and EP. Meanwhile, for FE, Feed was the main negative contributor and MM&D gave positive credit for FE efficiency. Transport for all indicators provided a marginal contribution to the environmental impact. The main contribution of these assessments to the SALSA project was that MM&D strongly contributes to the beef units’ environmental impact and Eutrophication Potential should be included in future assessments.
The results for the Mexican LCA are reported in Annexes WP3d and WP3e. Further results are reported in a paper on “Environmental Impact Evaluation of Beef Production in Veracruz Using Life Cycle Assessment”, which has been accepted as a poster at the 9th International Conference “LCA of Food” San Francisco, USA to be held on 8-10 October 2014.
The main achievement of this WP3 task was to define an approach where the need to answer the different stakeholders expectations in terms of indicators’ choice and sustainability performance calculations, have been taken into consideration. This provided a sound basis for developing a user friendly and useful tool for the farmers and SMEs in order to assess their sustainability, and compare it to the different stakeholders’ needs.
Concluding remarks: Identification of interesting areas for further research and improvement of sustainable food chains analysis.
The relevance of the farm stage contribution to the overall chain sustainability was confirmed; the internal transport of soy from the field to the local processing plant or to the port is very sensitive to distance and can contribute significantly to the overall GHG. Land consumption and GHG emission for extensive production systems can represent a major problem due to lower yields or lower daily weight increase for beef. Mixed crops and livestock production systems can provide a more sustainable solution than specialized extensive pastures-based farms. These indications, even if outside the core scope of the project (providing analytical frameworks and tools for applying sustainability to food chains), showed how assessing sustainability is still an issue to be handled with care; too many context-dependent variables and interactions are in place when assessing sustainability and interpreting the results; only a fraction of the potential information can be reasonably dealt with. For this reason the SALSA project took into consideration also the different stakeholders views on sustainability to put different contexts and views in the sustainability equation, which is necessarily partially influenced by subjective and/or political perspectives. Claiming for sustainability is still a process in the making and so far a certain amount of guarantee to the consumer can be guaranteed by third party transparent certifications. This consideration relates to another important finding: since assessing and managing sustainability is complex, sometimes influenced by subjective views and expensive, it creates barriers, mostly to smallholders or SMEs, when trying to adopt sustainable practices and certify them. Their difficulty to horizontally integrate and exploit economies of scale, to reduce the barriers to entry in sustainable food markets, makes it easier for larger groups (traders, or processors) to vertically integrate the farmers and SMEs. This reduces their power within the chain. Overcoming this problem is one of the major challenges to the implementation of sustainable soy and beef chains based upon smallholders and SMEs.
Task 3.3:The integrated performance assessment of Latin American-EU food chains is done by integrating the sustainability indicators and sustainability preferences defined in 3.1 and 3.2 and weighing the four sustainability aspects (social, economic, ecological and institutional/governance) according to the different stakeholders views. Great emphasis was put on the integration of the various sustainability indicators by using the method of multi-criteria assessment (MCA). First, by discussing which indicators are most important with regard to sustainability in soy and beef supply chains from Latin America to the EU. Second, by showing which indicators in these subsets are perceived to contribute most to the overall sustainability performance. Third, by providing a perceived performance per indicator and for the chains as a whole, thereby providing insight in the different chains’ improvement needs.
Some of the most relevant improvement needs refer to:
Beef
- Improve feeding techniques and support genetic programs to reduce beef GHG emissions
- Improve grazing beef (mostly organic) daily weigh increase through efficient feeding techniques to reduce the economic and environmental negative impact: GHG emission, energy and water consumption, land consumption, due to a longer life span and higher feed intake for producing 1 kg of beef.
- Test Mixed Crop - forestry - Livestock production systems as possible alternative to extensive specialized beef farms.
- Introduce manure management in the LCA and monitor its performances as they potentially influence the environmental sustainability performances.
- Develop best practices to reduce water use at slaughterhouses: and check for rumen contents and wastewater disposal. Focus on smaller slaughterhouses lacking technologies and skill for efficient water management.
Soy
- Consider the impact of glyphosate resistant weeds when assessing the GM soy sustainability
- Reduce P use as fertilizer in Brazil (will lead to reduced Global Warming and Energy Consumption)
- Increase public research on developing improved seed varieties (non-GM and GM)
- Introduce rotation and other best practices to integrate the no-tillage technique and reduce fertilizers and pesticides use
- Improve organic soy yield to increase land use efficiency and reduce GHG emissions
Soy and Beef
- Improve the transport infrastructure and logistic management
- Extend the analysis of the determinants of food chain coordination and collaboration as a contribution to better soy and beef chain sustainability performance.
- Consider the influence of the social, economic and environmental context in influencing sustainability assessment and management, mostly when choosing the:
• set of sustainability indicators
• production systems to be analyzed
• sustainability policies
• sustainability improvement scenarios.
The MCA questionnaire was also used to assess to which degree the standards, as evaluated in WP2, were addressing key sustainability indicators.
The “MCA assessment of standards” was used in WP4 to feed into the improvement tool.
To finalize the dissemination and use of the SALSA sustainability assessment protocol, a sustainability assessment tool, consisting of a translation of the extended LCA framework provided by WU in task 3.2 was provided. The tool theoretical framework clearly identified the sustainability improvement options defined in task 3.3 contributing to the WP4 sustainability scenario and sustainability impact assessment. Moreover the tool was implemented in WP5 on a web-based platform and used by WP6 for dissemination and training activities.
Work Package 4: Implementation of eco-innovative tools for the selected food chains
The overall objective of WP4 is to develop solutions to improve the sustainability and market performance of selected Latin America-EU food chains.
The following activities have been performed to reach this goal
1. Match the available food chain innovative solutions with the sustainability improvement needs for the selected Latin America-EU food chains detected in WP3 (task 4.1);
2. Define improvement scenarios for the selected Latin America-EU food chains; (task 4.2)
3. Test the impact of the selected food chains improvement solutions in terms of sustainability performance (task 4.3)
In particular in Task 4.1 an integration of the outcomes of Task 3.3 improvement options has been performed; its aim was to provide a framework within which the most relevant improvement options assessment and impacts can be implemented in areas where hotspots have been identified. A literature review with respect to sustainability improvements in the supply chain have been conducted on chain governance, quality management, including hazard based controls and certification schemes, logistics management (network design, inventory management or transportation) and traceability. The results showed that governance contribution to sustainability improvement could be obtained on the base of an extended theoretical framework, integrating the transaction cost economics and the resource based view approaches to the analysis of the relation between governance structure and collaboration along the food chain. A third perspective focusing on collaboration is also considered as a hybrid combination of the above-mentioned theories.
Through these models, an empirical model describing the influence of food chain governance on collaboration in soy and beef food chains can be defined to perform an impact analysis on sustainability improvement measures on the food chain governance and level of collaboration.
The aim of the quality review (Quality Management related to sustainability within the EU) was to identify key quality management issues related to sustainable challenges. Relevant findings were: there is a lack of literature related to sustainable quality management; there is a need for quality management systems within the supply chains to tackle the challenges related to the enhancement of sustainable development. Quality management helps businesses along the supply chains to identify the critical points where environmental, social, economic and governance impacts can be reduced.
The continuous improvement, which is a key issue in sustainability, can be achieved by the use of PDCA cycle in Quality Management.
The logistics review (a review on Quantitative models for sustainable food logistics management) aims to identify key logistics issues, analyze currently available quantitative models and point out quantitative modeling challenges in sustainable food logistics management.
From the logistics review, the significant results are: current food logistics management literature is insufficient to respond to practical needs; better logistics models can improve food safety, availability of food and sustainable and efficient networks which are the current hot spots in food chains sustainable management.
The traceability review (traceability in Food chains – a literature review) introduces the topic of traceability through a discussion focused on the food sector, a list of tracking and tracing technologies and the introduction of a tracking and tracing process model, leading to suggesting a decision model with its complexities and empirical relevance. Significant results:
- Tracking and tracing can only be effective if are implemented at a sector-wide level.
- Emerging technologies in networked devices and functionalities of future Internet can open the way for concepts and system implementations that lower implementation barriers and open opportunities for large-scale acceptance in the sector.
- The effective monitoring of sustainability indicators such as food miles and carbon footprint all depend on the availability of batch-based tracking and tracking schemes inside enterprises but also throughout the food supply chains.
Further insights on the current state of the art in the soy and beef chains in Latin America and Europe have been collected. This was attained by participating in conferences, talking to relevant people in the industry, NGOs and reading specific reports. These insights, together with the results of tasks 3.2 and 3.3 plus the literature analysis in task 4.1 provided the framework and the contents for an excel database, which is part of the WP4 Sustainability improvement impacts assessment model, developed in Tasks 4.2 and 4.3.
Task 4.2 and Task 4.3 defined the food chain sustainability improvement options aimed to improve the value of selected performance indicators for different scenarios for soy and beef chains. In particular (i) implemented a methodology to define improvement scenarios and options for the various soy and beef chains involved, ii) created a list of the most promising improvement options able to influence the performance of particular sustainability indicators, and iii) calculated the impact of these actions (grouped in different scenarios) on the chains sustainability performance. The methodology provides a general framework where the improvement options are defined in relatively general terms and need to be adapted and further specified when applied to different users in different contexts.
These tasks are oriented at providing the different stakeholders a methodology and a related impact calculation tool, allowing for the possibility to adapt the scenario definition and impact analysis to their specific context. Optimization models have been used, where possible, to calculate the overall performance on multiple performance indicators for different scenarios. The cases analyzed to test the methodology and the related impact analysis tools show relevant examples of how the SALSA protocol for sustainability improvement works.
The most important results obtained are: the definition of a first example of an integrated impact assessment tool, involving not only the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainability, but also the governance one; second, by using a relatively simple tool the users are given the chance to appreciate the complex dynamics that a relatively simple improvement action involves (e.g. change the animal diet to reduce enteric methane emission, or modernize the truck fleet); this functionality proved particularly interesting since counterintuitive outcomes often emerged during the testing phase, revealing unexpected trade offs between different sustainability dimensions. Last but not least the context-dependent nature of sustainability emerged and the consequent necessity to define carefully tailored sustainability strategies and support policies.
Details on the Improvement opportunity, scenario definition and impact analysis
Improvements can be applied to many functions involved in the food chain management, previously analyzed (task 4.1) such as the logistics management, the quality management, traceability, information exchange and institutional aspects concerning the chain governance. The improvements were classified according to two concepts, namely improvement opportunity and improvement scenario. An improvement opportunity is a change in a specific element of the Supply Chain scenario (configuration of a network, control rules, etc.) related to a specific business process (e.g. logistics, quality, information or governance) that results in a (potential) improvement of performance.
An improvement scenario brings together multiple (individual and/or disciplinary) improvement opportunities, resulting in specific defined settings of all the elements of the Supply Chain scenario.
A stepwise framework (SALSA Protocol) has been developed to assess the sustainability improvement impacts on the beef and soy chains. Step 1 starts with the selection and definition of the relevant sustainability Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), depending on the chosen strategy. A well-defined set of supply chain KPIs will help to establish benchmarks and assess changes over time. This is done respectively in step 2 (where the current performance is measured) and step 3 (where the performance is benchmarked). The benchmark results in improvement needs, which can be aligned to available improvement options. These are defined in step 4 and assessed in step 5 using sophisticated modeling tools. Finally, redesign strategies can be defined to improve the sustainability performance on the chosen indicators (step 6). After such an assessment, redesigns can be proposed, piloted and finally implemented if they turn out to be a successful business case.
Furthermore, the improvement needs of WP3 have been related to the following four focus areas in the supply chain:
i) Technological area (farm/slaughterhouse/crushing plants)
ii) Logistics area (transportation, storage, allocation, slaughterhouse)
iii) Food quality/safety
iv) Institutional – supply chain governance.
Improvement options are provided within each of the four focus areas, together with an estimation of the impact of an improvement option on the performance of the supply chain.
Finally, the possible implementation of the results of Deliverable 4.2 are described in a conceptual way in the Web based SALSA e-Platform (Work package 5).
Small workshops in Europe (Bonn, Wageningen) have been held to discuss the methodology, the suggested improvement options and the impact calculation to evaluate scenarios. In Bonn, WUR, ProQ, UGent and CBHU were present; In Wageningen, WUR and UNIBO were present. During the dedicated workshop at the General Conference in Argentina (November 22, 2013), key stakeholders determined the most promising scenarios to be implemented in the ICT platform provided in WP5. The dedicated workshop was also used to test the tool. In WP6, the guideline was developed on the operation of the system.
Work Package 5: Development of a web- based platform supporting the creation of sustainable value added food chains.
The overall objective of WP5 is the development of an e-support infrastructure for an efficient and innovative food supply chain management, knowledge transfer, and trade support that builds on the use of web-based support tools and network advisory support systems.
The following activities have been performed to reach the WP5 objective:
1. Adapting the e-Platform to the different countries linguistic, cultural and business’ structural characteristics
2. Extension of knowledge base related to sustainability indicators
3. Improving quality assurance and supporting trade between LA and the EU;
4. Capacity building of SMEs with reference to the web-tools adoption
5. Facilitate the food chain sustainability assessment through web based tools development
6. Facilitate the food chain adoption and management of sustainable solutions
7. Improvement of knowledge exchange between SMEs through e-networking platform
In particular, during the first stage of WP5, related to Task 5.1 an e-Platform framework was prepared were the basic functionalities of the SALSA e-Platform will be accessible in the three different project’s languages (English, Portuguese and Spanish). The functionalities allow for the management of the e-Platform access, the use and content management from individual groups, without central management control. These flexibility features are integrated for supporting platform utilization beyond project duration and make it a tool for communication between advisory groups or focus companies with SMEs or other stakeholders. The e-Platform hosts two well-developed principal types of content: a knowledge base and a set of tools for management support. The knowledge base can be continuously updated and extended by users with appropriate user right. All individual elements of the knowledge base could be accessed through a web link from any other web site. The e-Platform has implemented two different communication interfaces, one for regular users with some utilization routine and a standard web-based interface, accessible also through links from individual web pages run by third parties. The regular users’ interface access is restricted and needs a password. The platform concept allows the creation of many different hierarchies, all guided by password access, defining specific users’ profiles. The other is a web-based interface, which is implemented through a “content management system” that allows users with appropriate rights to adapt the content of pages and the provided links to specific needs. Stakeholders from Brazil have already incorporated country specific content. In response to the specific structures of the soy and beef chains, the platform allows its use in a network scenario where a support group, such as an advisory service or a focus company, supports users with more limited skills. Such a network scenario implementation has been tested in Germany and utilized by South American project partners in an experimental setting.
On the framework of the e-Platform and adaptation of the SALSA knowledge base to Latin-American contexts and the extension of the knowledge base by including sustainability schemes, was performed in Task 5.2. This task involved various initiatives supporting the knowledge base, the platform development and the model developments fit with the project focus and the users’ requirements. The adaptation of the platform structure to the needs of the stakeholders is an ongoing process were feedback have been provided by evaluation groups and users that have been progressively involved according to their interest with the e-Platform content. The Industrial Platform members, the Advisory Board and the people attending the SALSA specific meetings and training sessions have been the most relevant contributors. The task provided extensive input in translations. As far as the extension of the knowledge base is concerned two new databases have been added to the e-Platform. They involve factsheets of sustainability schemes and a database (in Excel format) with detailed specifications of the characteristics of major sustainability schemes and national and international regulations involving soy and beef chains’ sustainability. A third database “Qualint” with detailed specifications of the characteristics of the major quality management schemes, has been incorporated into the project and embedded into a newly developed data management interface for and easy use in decision support. A wiki-type knowledge base was implemented. The wiki is available in English, Spanish and Portuguese. It differs from the well-known Wikipedia being focused on sustainability issues. Enterprises or other stakeholders could integrate a link to the wiki in their own web sites.
A certification audit checklists was also added to the e-Platform, which combined requirements from different domains including quality, environmental, and sustainability issues. The audit tool contains a number of pre-set checklists provided by Global GAP, RTRS and other certification organizations. It also allows the development of enterprise specific checklists that could be defined on the base of requirements set up by trade partners. Latin-American stakeholders considered the audit tool as the tool with the most attractiveness for immediate use in operational quality and sustainability support.
In a next step the e-Platform support to implementing the quality/sustainability and trade communication between stakeholders and soy and beef chain agents was provided (Task 5.3)
A basic version of the web-based toolset for quality and basic sustainability monitoring and management support was defined.
Web-based trade portals adapted to the specific needs of these trade relationships have been structured. As trade communications needs change over time and are different for different scenarios and company needs, a static trade support communication portal or a cluster of such portals was not considered a suitable option with interest for enterprises. It was decided to offer flexible tools for realizing personalized trade communication support portals in response to specific needs.
Building upon the re-organization of functionalities already defined in the e-Platform the structure of this trade communication support portal involves i) fact sheets of sustainability certification schemes ii) results from an LCA calculation iii) results from an audit activity (all implemented in the platform), iv) the description of a process, v) a document with laboratory results or e.g. a video from a production environment (presently demonstrated for Brazilian users). A portal with links to such information can be provided either through a page inside the “content management system”, or through a company individual web page that hosts links to the appropriate information items in the platform. The portal provides the potential for communication quality and sustainability information for Latin American and European customers which are origin-based, product-based (product characteristics), process-based (process characteristics) and enterprise-based (e.g. certifications). The origin-based information involves information on origin as well as on the sustainability status of participating enterprises (eg. GlobalGAP certification).
In Task 5.4 an integration of functionalities for online training into toolset was implemented
Special face-to-face meetings with stakeholders from Latin America, including certification schemes developers, and EU industry associations with SALSA e-Platform development personnel supported the evaluation of demonstration and training approaches and subsequently led to the training course discussed in task 5.8 and the development of the extensive online user manual available on the platform.
Tasks 5.5 5.6 and 5.6 concentrated on the extension of the e-Platform toolset for facilitating the chain sustainable management along the chain and integrate them in a stable and suitable format for the users’ adoption.
The newly integrated tools provided in the platform include the Life Cycle Assessment tool provided by WP3 and the LCA-based sustainability improvement options impact assessment tool, provided by WP4.The tools provided by WP3 and WP4 were developed by the partners on an EXCEL format and are being accessed through an appropriate platform link, as is common with EXCEL models. Details of the tools have been discussed in WP3 and WP4. However, within the project it was concluded that an EXCEL model might not appropriately meet the needs of SMEs, as less skilled users sometimes can find it difficult to manage. It was therefore decided that the models should be available in a user-friendly, stand-alone computer program integrated to the e-Platform. The software for the LCA model (WP3) was finished, tested and used in various training sessions with data referring to Brazil. The software for the planning model (WP4) was completed by the end of May. EXCEL based models for Argentina and Mexico are linked to the platform since the extra-amount of time and resources made it impossible to include also these models in the e-Platform integrated software.
The integration of the different features in the e-Platform defined an organic and complex structure whose ambition is to be flexible enough to support readjustments in response to changing needs. The present content in knowledge provision and tools for management support evolved through partner experience and communication with stakeholders. The e-Platform audit scheme is an example of a tool that evolved from direct stakeholder communication and evaluation. As content and especially tools, as well as communication interfaces, have been tested with Latin-American experts and members of the industry platform plus other business stakeholders since about one year, the platform tool is ready to be used in a beta-testing version.
A final testing phase was performed in WP6 supported by Task 5.7 where SMEs clusters were organized to this end. The project identified 4 clusters with cluster managers from project participants for experimental implementation in beef (Brazil, Mexico) and soy (Brazil, Argentina). It was realized that the implementation and use of such a platform in a routine manner into enterprise operations beyond the initial use, takes time for adoption and will have to continue beyond the duration of the project.
In Task 5.8 training courses for cluster managers were developed, based on the tools provided in Task 5.4. The course structure and contents were first delivered during a training workshop in fall 2013 for users coming from Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina, responsible for introducing the platform in their respective countries. The training material was further developed (and translated) in Spanish for use in training events in Mexico. During the Buenos Aires specific meeting another training session was organized to this end. The course has been integrated into a web-based tutorial.
Work Package 6: SME-oriented training and exploitation
The overall WP6 objective is to support the exploitation of the SALSA results for the business partners through education and knowledge exchange. To this end the following activities have been performed:
1. Provide education and trainings for mediators and SMEs to develop local capacities in supporting the implementation of sustainable food chain
2. Support to knowledge transfer and exchange
3. Support the adoption of the tools developed within the project (tasks 6.1; 6.6).
In Particular the firs set of activities involved the setting up of an Industry Platform (IP).
At first an IP recommendation was developed to support the knowledge transfer activities in the project, the information exchange and for supporting relationships among different institutional stakeholders, farmers/SMEs, policy makers, extension services, civil society, and consumers. In particular a core group of stakeholders was involved in the research process to exchange information between the SALSA consortium and IP aimed at adapting the SALSA results to a business environment by accessing confidential information on the project’s results and tools.
The recommendations provide the principles of communication of research results for practical users and methods of establishing and operating the Industry platform; they are also based on previous project partners’ experience on an on-going transfer of knowledge to SMEs and small farmers.
Awareness raising workshops were carried out by CBHU (3 in Latin America with the organization of the LA partners and 1 in the EU). These workshops were held in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Hungary, creating the basis for the on-going dialogue among the partners along the soy and beef supply chains in LA and EU including food businesses and researchers. The other aim of these workshops was to identify and discuss the different legal and customer requirements, needs and the expectations of the food chain members and to design the activities for their harmonization in Latin America and EU.
Other National workshops took place in Brazil on the 22nd of October 2012 and Italy, where six national individual meetings were organized by UNIBO from December, 2011 April 2012.
A second national workshop was organized in Hungary on the 2nd April 2014, Mexico (4 events) 1 in Germany and two in Belgium in 2013 and 2014.
Five webinars were delivered by WP6; 3 newsletters were prepared and distributed to the interested partners and the IP members in electronic format in November 2012, April 2013 and December 2013
A handout was prepared and used as a knowledge transfer tool at 6 events.
The process of setting up the IP and the objectives of the Platform were presented on the 16th of January 2013 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, at the SALSA Review meeting.
Presentations were delivered during 12 industry meetings to transfer knowledge to the businesses.
The details on all the dissemination events are shown in Template A2 of the Report.
The national workshops showed the participants’ interest for the expected results of the SALSA project, particularly for the Life Cycle Analysis, databases about the standards, knowledge transfer activities, training materials and training courses. A specific interest emerged on the possibility to access the EU markets from the Latin American food industry representatives, especially beef producers. Sustainability was considered mainly, but not exclusively, as a tool to increase the chances of accessing export markets.
This information has been used as an input for the identification of the potential topics when developing the training material contents. The other benefits of the awareness raising workshops and individual meetings were the identification and involvement of relevant national organizations and experts, able to support the achievement of the project objectives and also help the project focusing on the real priorities of the practical users.
The number of stakeholders contacted, informed on SALSA activities is 540. At least 67 SMEs and 75 associations were contacted. It includes contacts from Germany, Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Argentina, Sweden, Norway, Brazil, Hungary, Mexico, France, Paraguay, USA, India, United Kingdom, Belgium, and Uruguay. The present number of IP members who signed the confidentiality agreement is 11: 4 from Italy, 2 from the Netherlands, 2 from Brazil, 1 from Hungary 1 from Argentina, and one from Mexico. The number of industries interested in the results is much higher. A mix of fear of unexpected legal consequences and of too demanding relations with the project, related to the confidentiality agreement requested to enter the IP, prevented many organizations to enter the IP.
The industry platform has started to operate through emails, newsletters and involvement in the project activities (surveys, feedbacks on the project results).
A database was set and continuously updated in WP6. This database is available at the BSCW platform, a SALSA data repository provided by proQ.
A web-based platform developed in WP5 (SALSA e-Platform) provides individual user accounts and the provision of individualized working environments to the Industry Platform members.
Information and tools have been provided for the IP members through the e-Platform. The members received an online training toolset developed in WP5 to give assistance to the users of the Salsa e-Platform.
The members of the IP were involved in most of the project activities. In particular: in WP2 the members of the IP provided data on chosen standards and regulations; in WP3 provided feedback to choose the field of analysis (products, standards and food chain boundary) and the indicators in the analysis of the performance of the supply chains; the IP also supported the data collection in WP 3.2. (LCA) analysis; in Task3.3 and provided information on relevant aspects of sustainability from their point of view; in WP4 the IP was involved in the selection of the scenarios (WP4.2.) provided support to choose the best scenarios (WP4.3.); in WP5 the members of the IP cooperated in the evaluation of the online training toolset, took part in the clustering activity of WP5.7 and during the training phase (WP5.8.) in utilizing the SALSA sustainability supporting tools.
In a second step of WP6 (Task 6.2) training materials were developed.
The development of 7 training modules was completed. The training materials contain theoretical (methods, slides) and practical part (group exercises and practical examples). Modules: (1) Knowledge transfer (mainly for mediators) (120 slides, 4 group exercises), (2) Organization of training courses (mainly for mediators) (72 slides, 1 group exercise), (3) EU legal and trade standard requirements on traceability, food safety and quality management and sustainability, and voluntary certification schemes (286 slides, 3 group exercises), (4) Measuring chain performance (67 slides, 3 group exercises), (5) Chain strategies (85 slides, 2 group exercises), (6) Application of the integrated analytical tool (56 slides, group exercise), and (7) Application of the integrated operational management tool (37 slides, group exercise). The contents structure was developed based on the partners expertise, the SALSA foreground, and the outcomes of the workshops and meeting held in 6.1. The core training materials were adapted for each training session to meet the specific requirements of the local audience and make them relevant to the specific production systems and general economic and social context in different countries and were revised several times based on the experiences and feedback from the participants. The content of the training materials is summarized in Deliverable 6.3 “Report on staff secondment and delivery of training”. The training modules (3-7) were translated into Portuguese and Spanish for SMEs.
In Task 6.3 Several knowledge transfer tools were developed. They include a Results Summary Sheets (RSS). Initially the method for the preparation of a 1-page summaries on the first practical results of the project was defined. One-page summaries were prepared in WP6 for the SALSA project. The RSS have been distributed to SMEs, small farmers, policy-makers and consumers organizations vie e-mail and directly at different events:
• Campden BRI Hungary Open Day on 16st of November, 2011 in Budapest, Hungary
• National workshop on the 21st of February, 2012 in Budapest, Hungary
• Campden BRI Day on the 12nd of June 2012 in Chipping Campden, UK
• Farmers’ Day (Open Day), on the 14th of June, 2012 in Gödöllő, Hungary
• Farmer Expo (Agricultural Exhibition) on the 17th of August, 2012 in Debrecen, Hungary
• LCA Conference on the 2-4th of October, 2012 in Saint Malo, France.
• Campden BRI Hungary Open Day, 12th March 2013 in Budapest, Hungary
• Campden BRI Day on the 6th June 2013 in Chipping Campden , UK
• Campden BRI Hungary Open Day on the 2nd April 2014, Budapest
An updated version of the Results Summary Sheets (RSS) was developed in 2013.
A 1-page summary is available at the SALSA web site under the “others” section.
Guidelines for use of the SALSA tools. A Guideline was developed in WP6, based on the results of WP3 and WP4. The document includes guidance on the use of 2 tools, allowing the users to perform a first LCA-based sustainability assessment (from WP3 results) and a sustainability improvement options’ impact assessment (from WP4 results), respectively. In a joint effort from WP6 and WP5 the results from WP3 and WP4 have been transferred to the e-Platform, and made available to relatively unskilled end users. The inputs for the definition of the tools structure and content came not only from the SALSA WPs but also to the participation in the testing phase of the ENVIFOOD Protocol; this allowed to compare the SALSA LCA-based decision support integrated tool with the international reference methodology; the aim was to (i) evaluate whether some of the experiences of the SALSA project can be used as an input for improving the ENVIFOOD Protocol; (ii) to check whether the SALSA integrated tool is in compliance with the requirements of a relevant EU sustainability analysis protocol as the ENVIFOOD Protocol.
Practical recommendations were developed in WP6 based on the experiences of the project partners about the improvement options and solutions to enhance cooperation between Latin America and EU. These recommendations are available in the SALSA public Website Results part in the “Others” section.
The recommendations list a series of measure, activities and strategies related to the different dimensions of sustainability and tailored to the various categories of stakeholders involved in food chain sustainability: Standard developers, Policy makers, NGOs, Businesses, farmers and civil society in general.
Several personal visits (28 businesses were visited) were carried out by CBHU, UNIBO, UFV, EMBRAPA, proQ where materials developed in WP6 (hand-out, posters) were used.
In Task 6.4 Fifteen staff exchanges were organized between the EU and Latin American project partners to facilitate the exchange of best practices and common protocols for managing the selected soy and beef food supply chains. The staff secondment allowed the partners to better understand the different countries contexts in the business, research, and general public attitude towards sustainability. It also allowed for deeper understanding of the specific issues related to the research as well as trade and managerial aspects related to the integration of the EU and Latin sustainable soy and beef chains. The experiences collected during the staff secondments supported the further development of the SALSA project, opened new channels for possible future cooperation among the interested partners and helped to create links to promote sustainability along the soy/beef value chains, which improved considerably the quality of the relationships among the European, Brazilian, Mexican and Argentinian partners.
In Task 6.5 training courses have been delivered to Latin American stakeholders
Twelve training courses were delivered in the 3 selected countries (Mexico, Brazil and Argentina) for the stakeholders of the soy and beef supply chains. The “train the trainers” approach was adopted. First the mediators were trained in order to act as local resources for further trainings. A second set of trainings was delivered with the assistance of the trained mediators for small- and medium enterprises (SMEs) to enhance the development of local capacities for the implementation of sustainable food chain approaches. The 7 training modules, developed in task 6.2. were delivered to 215 people at the training courses. Training modules 1-7 were delivered for the mediators, while modules 3-7 were delivered for the SMEs. The trainings showed that sustainability is not a primary concern for small businesses; they are attracted first by the resource efficiency and business growth aspects of sustainability the sustainability performance improvement, mainly the environmental one, should follow as a result of technically and economically sound practices.
In a last step the testing of the integrated tools was performed in Task 6.6. The integrated tools, made available through the e-Platform, were tested by 5 Brazilian institutions related to soybean and beef chains to verify their practical applicability and to collect feedback from the users to enhance the further development of the SALSA software tools. All institution received training on the use of the tools and the e-Platform.
The test, based on the framework described in the normative ISO 25000 series, covered two main aspects: i) evaluation of the tools’ performance and utility, ii) evaluation of its usability. In this way, the full purpose and functionality of the e-Platform could be evaluated by a larger number of users than indicated in the DoW.
Results show that, as a whole, the e-Platform was perceived as useful and well constructed for its purpose, being a robust, complete and safe tool for supporting sustainable development of SMEs and farmers, among other stakeholders of the beef and soy chain. A report was prepared on D6.4 “Report on testing of integrated tools: Report on the results obtained by the test of Integrated analytical and management tools adopted by the food chain stakeholders, provided by the WPs 3, 4 and 5”.
Work Package 7: Dissemination and education strategies
The overall WP7 objective is to define and implement strategies of education and dissemination of SALSA results targeting both EU and Latin America stakeholders. The objective was achieved by
1. Disseminating the Salsa results and raise public and policy makers awareness
2. Supporting the non-business stakeholders education on sustainable food production and consumption.
These two activities have been implemented at a first stage by developing brochures and multimedia documents allowing the public not directly involved in the soy and beef chains management to access relevant information on such a complex issue. In particular a SALSA public web site is available at the following link: http://www.salsaproject.eu. The web site consists of two main different sections: The Project and Results. In the Project section the project goal, scope, Work Packages and the Expected Results and Dissemination Activities are reported. In the second section Results the actual results available to the general public are being uploaded and provided the general public and stakeholders after the Consortium approval. The Results include
The following sub-sections: Conferences, Papers & Deliverables, Others and Training where texts, pictures videos and presentations can be uploaded.
The web site permits also the inclusion of News, Events where the major news related to the SALSA project activities and the main events (conferences, meetings, seminars) involving the SALSA project activities are reported. The list of Partners, Industrial Platform members, and a Contact section are also in the website, allowing a direct contact between the SALSA consortium members and the public. The SALSA website has been continuously updated with references to the SALSA results available to the general public and other links to resources supporting the general public awareness of what food chain sustainability entails and of the different stakeholders involved in sustainability implementation.
Two brochures for disseminating the SALSA results to the general public have been issued. The two project periods’ results are reported in a format allowing a quick reference to the main outcomes of the project. Providing the necessity to keep some of the results confidential the description is more of a general nature, but also involving significant insights on the most interesting aspects of interest for a group of stakeholders interested in understanding how sustainability is affecting their life, but also understanding how sustainability is perceived and managed in different cultural as well as professional contexts, in EU and Latin America.
In order to support the Brochures and multimedia documents implementation for the dissemination to the public the brochures, in English, Portuguese and Spanish, are available at the SALSA website and the SALSA e-Platform.
Newsletters for the general public were produced and sent to 293 addresses in Latin America and EU. The contacts involve chosen influential individuals related to a personal extensive network. The newsletters kept the public informed on the more relevant development in the SALSA projects and on related news on sustainability in the food chain, with a focus on Soy and Beef.
Along with brochures and multimedia, the SALSA results have been disseminated in a large number of Meeting and Conferences with the goal of raising public and policy makers’ awareness. Key organizations of the soy and beef chains have been contacted and participated in these meeting together with the SALSA staff. The main events where: the two SALSA General Conferences and the three Specific meeting organized in Latin America and the EU (Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Hungary and Belgium). Along with these main events a series of other Seminars, meetings with general public and Policy makers have been organized in Brazil.
Other meetings were held in Passo Fundo (Brazil), Capanema (Brazil), São Paulo (Brazil), Maracaju (Brazil), , Mexico City (Mexico) SALSA Project Sustainability meeting - Mexico city, 14 th November 2013, Athens (Greece), to disseminate the SALSA results to specifically targeted stakeholders.
The SALSA project contribution to the development of sustainable beef in Brazil was also acknowledged in a Book launched during the Exhibition: Mato Grosso do Sul Seen Around the World. The event took place at the United Nations headquarters, New York on March the 13th 2014. Ambassadors of all the countries represented at the UN received one copy of the publication, as a way to spread SALSA results for a broad worldwide audience, reaching important policy makers.
SALSA partner salso participated in Rio+20 in a panel on sustainable agriculture and to the Low Carbon Agriculture Program (ABC Program).
A total of 532 people have taken part in the many events promoted by SALSA. More details on these dissemination activities are reported in Template A2 of the Final Report.
Probably more people have been reached indirectly, since other meetings like the one at the UN Headquarters and at Rio20+ involved a large number of policy makers, producers, academics, and other stakeholders significantly contributing to our project’s activity acknowledgment. Furthermore, in May 2014 (after the project’s end) an event was held at Federal University of Viçosa, aiming to spread knowledge about a new issue of the soybean producers: the Rural Environmental Registration. Approximately 100 people attended this meeting: professors, researchers and students, and this was made possible because of the network built during SALSA.
The personal contact and creation of trust was a key factor to approach the key stakeholders of the chain. The events and meetings organized in Latin America by SALSA Project were very important for its final outcome. From the visits of other SALSA members, to meetings involving stakeholders, these events were crucial for the expansion of the SALSA network and to the feedback of the project’s objectives and goals. Many companies and Brazilian institutions were interested by the programs purpose. This way, the feedback provided could be of greater impact: the social network constructed via meetings, allowed a bigger representation of the soy and beef chains stakeholders points of view.
From the scientific point of view the SALSA results have been disseminated in different scientific conferences in Austria, France, Italy and the US. Seven papers have been published in International peer reviewed journals; one poster has been accepted to an International conference in US and other papers are currently in the pipeline. A more detailed list of scientific peer reviewed publications is provided in Template A1.
In task 7.3 WP7 Developed an Inventory of Successful cases of sustainable food chains.
In the meetings and conferences described in task 7.2 a first list of successful cases was discussed; the first visits took place in November 2012. Through FSLA, the UFV team visited the organic soybean producers in south of Brazil. This visit had the objective to collect data to other WP (WP3 and WP4) and also supply material for the inventory of successful case.
SALSA provided a set of cases covering different areas where innovations related to sustainability resulted successful. The countries chosen are Argentina Mexico and Brazil, where the relevance of the outcomes for the SALSA project goals, focused on the eco-challenges for Latin America, is stronger. The example chosen also consider the role of smallholders and SMEs; in many cases their relation with larger companies is described. The study shows how sustainability interacts within a business context. The solutions devised include the implementation of good agronomic practices, as well as innovative technical and management solutions applied to the different stages of the beef and soy chain, tailored to the companies’ context.
The case study approach provided useful in understanding the complex interactions and the important role of human resources in developing successful sustainable solutions within a business environment. Moreover the chain approach emerged quite clearly as a necessary step in understanding and managing sustainability and its complexity. Very often the companies analyzed implemented solutions oriented to vertically or horizontally coordinating the different actors of the chains in which they were involved. Certifications according to sustainability-related standards are always adopted as market access’ enablers for sustainable products. These results support the fact that implementing solutions able to improve the food chain sustainability requires relevant economic, technical and human resources to face the high transaction costs involved.
This implies the necessity for SMEs and smallholders to coordinate their actions and reach the (internal or external) economies of scale necessary to improve the sustainability of the food chains. In our case studies most of the times the presence of a dominant actor in the chain (usually a large company) acted as a facilitator for the SMEs and small farmers access to the demanding market for sustainable and high quality soy and beef, supporting the findings of other authors’ when analyzing the Brazilian beef chain (Marques Vieira L., Traill W.B. 2008).
These outcomes provide the SALSA project a relevant contribution in defining the improvement scenarios in WP4 and the training modules in WP6. The important role entrepreneurs played in successfully creating and/or adopting sustainability solutions, can be of interest for the policy makers when developing sustainability policies for the food chains (WP7). Policies stimulating sustainability not only as a “cost” but also as an opportunity for increasing the businesses competitiveness can push creative and committed food chain agents’ to improve their companies’, and/or the entire food chain’s, sustainability.
In the last stage of the project (Task 7.4) an educational oriented forum was set up in WP6.
The education forum, defined during the SALSA project, is based on a network of several stakeholders, mainly from Latin America. They had the opportunity to understand: a) the EU expectations and strategies in relation to the implementation of sustainable food chains; b) the complex interaction among the different indicators and dimensions of sustainability; c) possible strategies to improve the food chains sustainability and their competitiveness in a global market.
A web structure was developed in the e-Platform (WP5) and the SALSA network members are using it. All partners who have been working in the SALSA project were added to the Forum and invited to feed and participate to discussions. Two discussion topics were created. One of them is about the Brazilian Soybean Moratorium, which aimed to stimulate discussions about issues such as reducing deforestation, sustainable production, benefits of legislation, among others. The second topic was made up to discuss sustainable practices applied to food chains, and for sharing success cases between the Salsa Project partners. The link to the forum is: www.salsaproject.eu/forum.
Potential Impact:
Potential impact of the project .
Overall impact
The project complex structure provided results in terms of research and dissemination activities whose overall potential impact will be the enhancement of the soy and beef food chain important contribution to an increased EU and Latin American social, economic and environmental sustainability.
The Latin American countries sustainable development is in fact strongly influenced by soy and beef production; they are shaping not only the environment, but also the society and economy, as a consequence of the fast growth of these productions and of the related chains. In the EU demand for beef and soy will be more and more related to import from non-EU countries, but beef and soy sustainability are increasingly questioned from the environmental and social point of view, influencing the decisions of policy makers, industries and consumers’ in EU. Different specific impacts contributed to this positive overall potential impact of the SALSA project. The impacts have been generated by a joint research and dissemination activity within SALSA.
Research results influencing SALSA impact
From the research activities point of view SALSA methods, results and tools, contributed to an enhanced knowledge on monitoring, managing and communicating the soy and beef chains’ sustainability. This knowledge refers not only to sustainability assessment and management tools, but also to a better understanding of how these tools should be operated according to the different stakeholders views and expectations on sustainability. In particular a substantial part of the SALSA research activities results have been organized in the SALSA extended sustainability assessment protocol. The SALSA protocol started from the FAO-SAFA sustainability assessment framework approach; this has been tested, adapted and integrated to specific soy and beef production systems and chains in Latin America. A sustainability assessment model was developed, which provided further insights on the relevance of the integration of different dimensions of sustainability in an LCA-based analysis, and on the implementation of sustainability in a smallholders and SMEs context. In particular the role of governance has been explored, which showed the importance of the transaction costs approach and other approaches to the food chain governance analysis in understanding the influence of sustainability implementation processes on the smallholders’ and SMEs’ access to sustainable markets. In a second stage of the SALSA sustainability improvement impact assessment protocol an innovative application was defined, which can further improve the definition of sustainability strategies in a food chain context, more suitable to the skills and resources of farmers and SMEs. The SALSA sustainability Protocol can be adapted also to other similar food chains, interesting for Latin America and EU, providing a larger potential impact to the main commodities.
Furthermore SALSA defined and information base on the regulatory set for sustainable beef and soy chain management. The data bases on sustainability standards and regulations allowed for a clearer understanding of their present level of compliance in involving the different dimensions of sustainability. Last but not least an extensive analysis of the different stakeholders’ level of awareness and preferences on sustainability provided a sound base for the sustainability performance results’ interpretation and possible improvement strategies. SALSA put sustainability in a multi-stakeholders’ context where the influence on the efficient adoption of technical and managerial solutions is strictly related to the possibility to reduce communication barriers and generate consensus on the visions and main strategies involving the beef and soy sustainable chains development.
Dissemination results influencing SALSA impacts
This involved the dissemination part of the project where the knowledge base and tools provided by the research have been shared through a wide range of activities. They include the definition of web-based sustainability assessment and management tools, scientific papers, presentations, webinars, newsletters, brochures, training courses, delivered at different events and on the SALSA website and e-Platform, plus staff secondment.
From a general point of view one important SALSA impact was the creation of a network of stakeholders involved in SALSA that can contribute to reduce the personal, technical, administrative and cultural barriers constraining an efficient collaborative management of the chains. In particular the creation of an Industry Platform supported the implementation of SALSA tasks and testing of the sustainability solutions devised by the research activity. The mutual knowledge and the collaborative tools generated by SALSA, can increase the capacity building of the different stakeholders involved in the food chain in terms of better knowledge of the regulatory framework and related administrative, technical and socio economic processes involved in sustainable food chains management. This will be particularly relevant for the small family farmers (and their organizations) plus the SMEs in Latin America, but will also reflect upon the policy makers and other stakeholders increasing their awareness of the complexity and far reaching consequences of dealing with sustainability implementation.
Detailed impacts
Each SALSA result influences a broad range of impacts to different stakeholders. The consequences of these impacts generate complex system dynamics, whose logical path cannot be easily described and/or forecasted. The detailed SALSA impacts have been classified according to the different major stakeholders in the soy and beef chains in Latin America and the EU. This choice will involve a certain amount of repetitions in terms of results affecting the described impacts, but we think it improves its readability.
Scientific Community
Promising positive impacts on the scientific community relate to an enhanced collaboration between different scientific disciplines in research, training, sharing information and public education. Contacts with important sustainability research organizations like FAO, the Sustainability Consortium, the COSA consortium, people4earth, ENVIFOOD, have already been established for further improve the research and knowledge exchange on these issues. The international experience, contacts and resources provided by the project seem to have further enhanced the carriers’ development of young scientists, mostly in the soy and beef chains in Latin America.
EU and Latin American and industry
SALSA potentially impacts on the European and Latin America soya and beef industry’s competitiveness by supporting their compliance to sustainability standards and by granting the food chain stakeholders an easier access to information, collaborative tools and strategies, developed by the SALSA project. This will reduce their transaction costs increase the supply of sustainable, high value-added food and feed.
The importers, processors and retailers in the EU and Latin America can use the SALSA tools, knowledge and contacts to promote the sustainability, safety and trade of such products. The impact of SALSA on the industry is supported by the SALSA Industry Platform and the network of stakeholders created during the SALSA project dissemination activities and staff secondment. In particular the exploitation of the SALSA e-Platform potentialities has been tested during the project at different SMEs and specific training activity to relevant companies has been performed within the UFV and EMBRAPA led “SALSA in Company “ initiative.
Latin American small farms and SMEs
The SALSA impact will benefit the expansion of a still absolutely small niche of smallholders and SMEs in Argentina, related to beef and soy production, and a relatively larger number in Brazil and Mexico, by externalizing, or making more accessible to use internally, some of the most complex and expensive activities related to sustainability monitoring and management. SALSA supports the certification, technical, economic and social sustainability performances improvements, adoption of new management tools; this allows famers to more efficiently join and participate in the sustainable food chains by increasing the quantity and quality of their production, becoming able to fulfill the requests from the market of sustainable products. The consequent higher returns will increase the economical sustainability of cultivation for small farmers, thus reducing the abandon of small properties and reducing social frictions due to fast urbanization not absorbed by the industrial or services sectors.
The potentiality of this impact is supported by the fact that farmers’ organizations and other SMEs in Latin America, related to the SALSA network, used the SALSA e-Platform functionalities to choose the best certification scheme to adopt for entering the EU markets for soy.
Policy makers, standards developers, and the other stakeholders will be provided with an increased knowledge base supporting their decisions through better information on the different Latin American and EU contexts of sustainability from the technical-economic and regulatory point of view. The stakeholders‘ views and preferences on sustainability provided by SALSA can also enhance the possibility for the policy makers to effectively mediate between diverging views. SALSA project will also impact on the European Food Quality and Safety regulations and standards by crosslinking strategic research priorities and policy recommendations.
The civil society organizations, other international organizations can benefit from the experience of SALSA in the assessment of sustainability and in the central issue of reducing technical, cultural and political barriers between Latin American and EU stakeholders involved in the beef and soy chain sustainability implementation. Their activities can benefit from specific and more detailed info on the sustainability of such important products, and consequently improve the level of effectiveness of the debate with other stakeholders. A virtuous circle can in fact be generated, where more aware stakeholders can provide more effective discussions and solutions for a sustainable development.
Consumers
With regard to the EU consumers and other stakeholders not directly involved in the soy and beef chains, the debate on sustainable food is becoming more and more relevant creating expectations in a large share of the population, policy makers, investors and companies. The consumption of sustainable soy and beef is anyway still stagnant as a consequence of high prices for the feed industry (soy) and consumers (beef) and a relatively inefficient sustainable supply chains management. The potential for SALSA to i) increase the soy and cattle/beef chains technical efficiency, thus reducing their final costs ii) improve the environmental and ethical standards and iii) contribute to an effective dissemination and awareness raising campaign, will reduce the frictions still constraining a virtuous circle where demand increase, can be satisfied by an efficient supply chain management, which in turn stimulates a further sustainable soy and beef demand.
An increased consumption of sustainable soy and beef will also benefit the, societal and economic scenario in the EU. In particular a positive impact of increased sustainable food consumption on health; beside the increased quantity also the sustainable food quality can be increased by supporting sustainable production, transport and processing technologies and best practices; and improved regulatory frameworks (certification schemes and regulations) for the Latin America producers, in order to obtain food complying with the safety and quality standards.
In particular a positive direct impact on animal feed and indirect impact on beef sustainability, will be provided by boosting the use of soya produced with lower quantities of fertilizers and pesticides this will drive to a safer and higher quality nutrients in animal products.
• Main dissemination activities: trainings, conferences, publications, workshops
SALSA Dissemination Activities relate to 101 events and publications, which can be summarized as follows:
• 3 international publications peer reviewed
• 4 papers in peer reviewed proceedings of international conferences,
• 1 non peer reviewed publication
• 11 training courses
• 6 webinars
• 3 Seminars
• 2 Organized Conferences
• 12 workshops
• 13 meetings
• 12 web applications
• 6 flyers
• 2 videos
• 22 presentations,
• 6MSc and 1 BSc theses
• 1 interviews
• 1 TV clips
• 4 Posters
• 5 newsletters
These activities cover a wide geographical as well as thematic range, ensuring a widespread dissemination of the relatively complex and specific issues.
List of Websites:
Project website address: http://www.salsaproject.eu/
Relevant contact details:
Scientific Coordinator: Cesare Zanasi - UNIBO (cesare.zanasi@unibo.it )
WP2 Leader: Salvador Garibay - FiBL (salvador.garibay@fibl.org)
WP3 Leader: Xavier Gellynk - UGent (xavier.gellynck@ugent.be)
WP4 Leader: Jacqueline Bloemhof - WU (jacqueline.bloemhof@wur.nl)
WP5 Leader: Gerhard Schiefer - proQ (schiefer@uni-bonn.de)
WP6 Leader: András Sebők - CBHU (a.sebok@campdenkht.com)
WP7 Leader: Aziz Galvão da Silva Júnior - UFV (aziz.galvao@gmail.com)
Project Manager dr. Alessandro Zamboni - UNIBO (a.zamboni@unibo.it )
dr. Monica Russo - UNIBO (monica.russo4@unibo.it)