Presentation for Foodpolicy.NL on the Irish Origin Green initiative and the applicability in the Nehterlands

1. Origin Green: can the Dutch go Irish to
green the food industry?
Krijn J. Poppe, Wageningen Economic Research
February 2017 Foodpolicy NL, Amersfoort

2. Krijn J. Poppe
 Economist
 Research Manager at Wageningen Economic Research
 Member of the Council for the Environment and Infrastructure
 Member Advisory Committee Province of South-Holland on the quality
of the Living Environment
 Board member of SKAL – Dutch organic certification body
 Former Secretary General of the EAAE, now involved in managing its
publications (ERAE, EuroChoices)
 Former Chief Science Officer Ministry of Agriculture

3. 3
Content of the presentation
 Origin Green: some questions and comments
 Comparison of Ireland and the Netherlands
 Is there a role for the Common Agriculture Policy?
 Take home messages

4. Management means measurement
 Sustainability is an important challenge
 Measurement is key to management
 We are in the same line of thinking: there are many
initiatives to realise this

5. Dutch FADN on sustainability (PPP)
0
20
40
60
80
100
Cost price
per 100
kg milk
Income per
Family
Labour unit
solvability
(%)
Energy use
per euro output
Water use per euro output
-
Pesticide use
per hectare
number
of days
Cows in Meadow
-Education
Surplus of
Phosphate per
hectare
Surplus of
Nitrogen per
hectare
PEOPLE
PROFIT
<< PLANET >>

6. Annual monitoring
6
Elements:
• Transparent reporting by
independent partner
• Interpreting performance to
evaluate goals and
effectiveness of measures
• Support in developing
monitoring (indicators –
targets – methods – data)
• Annual: ongoing process
Greenhouse
gases
Dairy chain
emissions
Mtonnes C O2
Eq.
Energy
efficiency
Dairy chain primary
fuel consumption
m3
NGE per
1000 kg milk
Sustainable
energy
production
Production of
sustainable energy
% of
consumption
Antibiotics
Number of farms
under the SDa
action value
%
C ow lifetime
Age of dairy cows at
culling
Years
Animal
welfare
To be determined Development of monitoring system (by 2017)
Pasture
grazing
Total number of
farms with grazing
%
Responsible
soy
Share of responsible
soy
%
Minerals
Phosphate excretion
of dairy cattle
m kg
Ammonia emissions
of dairy cattle
m kg
Biodiversity To be determined Development of monitoring system (by 2017)
0 5 10 15 20
Goal 2020
Current 2014
Benchmark 2011
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
Goal 2020
Current 2014
Benchmark 2005
0 5 10 15 20
Goal 2020
Current 2014
Benchmark 2012
0 20 40 60 80 100
Goal 2020
Current 2014
Benchmark 2012
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Goal 2020
Current 2014
Benchmark 2011
0 20 40 60 80 100
Goal 2020
Current 2014
Benchmark 2011
0 20 40 60 80 100
Goal 2020
Current 2014
Benchmark 2011
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
Goal 2020
Current 2014
Benchmark 2011
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Goal 2020
Current 2014
Benchmark 2011

7. Management of Change
7
Elements:
• Support in developing
sustainability programs
• Workshops with all
stakeholders
• Reflection on developments
• Research to gain Insights in
perceptions and motivations
• Data analysis
• Annual: ongoing process

8. DSF: International standard for sustainable dairy
From a global framework, supported
by the international dairy sector
To a regional approach
and standardization

9. The Sustainability Consortium
THE SUSTAINABILITY CONSORTIUM © 2016 ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY AND UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS 9
Life Cycle Perspective
Category Sustainability
Profile
• Social & Environmental
Hotspots
• Improvement Opportunities
Multi-Stakeholder Process
Key Performance
Indicators
• Up to 15 KPIs for retailer
buyers to manage suppliers
Snapshots & Visuals
• Simplified, visual training
documents showing lifecycle
stages, hotspots, KPIs etc.
TSC translates complex sustainability tools into simple tools to allow buyers and other business users
to embed sustainability in everyday business
• Global multi-stakeholder non-
profit organization
• >100 company and NGO
members, >1700s of users
worldwide

10. © 2016 THE SUSTAINABILITY CONSORTIUM, WHICH IS JOINTLY ADMINISTERED BY ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY AND UNIVERSITY OF
10
Continuous Improvement of Sustainability of all Food in NL
Participants
• Alliantie Verduurzaming Voedsel (AVV)
• Pilot companies/organizations
• Co-financing by Dutch government (PPP)
Goal, finance
• Develop and implement a sustainability prioritisation,
improvement and monitoring system for all food sold
in Netherlands
• Financing 2016: €300K 2017/18: 600K
Tasks project
• Evaluate other sustainability initiatives
• Adapt KPI’s
• Formulate improvement opportunities
• Pilots

11. EU farm sustainability data
 Demonstrate the feasibility (and usefulness) of collecting
Farm Level Indicators on New policy Topics (= data on
sustainability) in different administrative environments
 On 1100 farms in 9 member states, including Ireland,
the Netherlands, Germany, France, Poland, Spain.
 Proposal for permanent data collection on 20.00 farms
 Chance for food industry to go for large scale monitoring
of sustainability in Europe.

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

13. The example of Origin Green and other
schemes raise questions:
 Trial and error to find the best indicators and form, how
do we learn from different schemes?
 Or are they competitive as being linked to marketing?
 How to realise international standardisation for
comparisons, claims to be the greenest, race to the top?
 Does the consumer value all these labels and schemes?
 Who pays the cost? The consumer, retailer or farmer (by
cost savings)

14. Can the Irish approach be copied in NL?
 Agriculture key in saving
the Irish economy
 Climate change treaty
has a big impact on agri.
 Tourism depends on rural
area: green image
 Classic central approach
of state and sector
 Top-down strategy
 Less sense of urgency
 Transport, Energy, Housing
are also important transition
areas in climate change
 Tourism to cities and beach
 Moving away from collective
action (Frau Antje, LNV>EZ,
commodity boards). NGO’s?
 Innovation asks for bottom-
up initiatives, new players

15. Is the sustainability challenge different?
 We have no societal consensus on trade-offs, like
manure management versus (perceived) animal welfare
or between pollution here or abroad.
 Improving farm management helps, but perhaps the
easy part where profits and ecological sustainability go
hand in hand has been realised ?
 And other measures, including restrictions on the size of
the industry are needed (manure problem)
 Dutch industry is NW European based: sourcing over the
border is easier than managing your Dutch farmers ??

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

17. Is there a role for
EU Agricultural
policy?

18. Some examples of a Common Agricultural
and Food Policy
 Make our diets more healthy and sustainable
with a price that factors in true costs
 Incorporate climate change agreements
in farm decisions
 Install smart instruments for environmental
management (oblige environmental accounting?)
 Link direct payments not to land but to public values and
base them on industry schemes for greening

19. Take home messages
 The Irish initiative is an interesting and useful approach
 It cannot be copied automatically to the Netherlands
● Given the link with marketing Green Ireland
● Given different challenges and institutional settings
 But international monitoring and management of farm
sustainability is one of the ways to go (let’s join forces)
 EU’s Common Agricultural Policy should reinforce that
 Other measures (like putting a price on CO2 emissions or
tradable farm quota on bad outputs) could work as well

20. Thanks for your
attention
krijn.poppe@wur.nl
www.wur.nl
Based on work of:
Joan Reijs (Sustainability Monitoring),
Koen Boone (TSC)
Hans Vrolijk (FADN, FLINT),
Sjaak Wolfert (ICT)