PALM DESERT, CALIF. — As Roberta Anderson, president of GLOBALG.A.P. North America, took the Sustainable Produce Summit stage to moderate a panel on biodiversity, she reminded attendees about Global Biodiversity Day, which was held May 22.
Anderson said the panel, including Josh VanDeWalle of Bayer, Giovanni Cavaletto of GLC Cerritos and Ariel Larson of the Sustainable Food Group, would look at biodiversity on a global level because biodiversity loss means the reduction of the number of plants and animal species in any given area.
“In the U.S., retailers tend to be focusing specifically right now on the role of pollinators,” she said. “One in every three bites we take is from a pollinated product, and 75% of the fruits, vegetables and nuts.”
Anderson asked VanDeWalle to share how row crop growers take less-productive areas of the field and convert them to pollinator fields. Growers also use climate-smart grants to plant cover crops and reduce tillage.
Cavaletto said GLC Cerritos worked on reforestation efforts in Mexico, which created some wildlife corridors. The company has been Rainforest Alliance certified since 2017.
Anderson said a big component of biodiversity is integrated pest management, which VanDeWalle explained is when growers scout and monitor for pests — anything from insects, disease or weeds — and identify the severity of the issue and then use chemical or cultural solutions to control the pest.
“The most important thing in a good integrated pest management plan is to assess what was successful,” he said. “The end result ideally is a crop at the end of the season that is marketable and that you can take to your buyers, free from disease and insects.”
Larson said retailers realize the critical role that pollinators play in food and in turn are starting to implement some pollinator health requirements. She said retailers also face external pressure from stakeholders and nonprofits to do more.
“They see promoting pollinator health, protecting pollinator health as important to food security as well as important to their ability to continue to do business,” she said. “There’s all of this pressure to address habitat and loss of biodiversity, and there’s opportunity to do that in agricultural supply chains.”
Larson said retailers also face pressure targeting specific chemical classes or banning specific chemical classes that growers use.
“There’s a lot of risk for unintended consequences when you take an approach like that,” she said. “There is this recognition that IPM [integrated pest management] is really a holistic approach and the sort of convergence around certification as tools to drive that progress.”
Larson also said these biodiversity certifications help retailers communicate to the consumer what is happening at the grower level and throughout the supply chain.
“We know that there’s an audit happening, so we know that somebody is at the farm and has gone through a checklist of practices,” she said. “And that checklist is public. Anybody can pull those documents up online, and you can see exactly what practices have been verified.”
VanDeWalle said the threat of potential bans on neonicotinoids or other crop protection products is a challenge for growers. Agrochemical companies such as Bayer continue to research new and better modes of action, but growers face a lot of challenges with resistance to pests and diseases and need as many tools in their respective toolboxes as possible, he said.
Seed treatments, for example, offer a precise application, said VanDeWalle.
“We’ve done a lot of label updates also to our foliar products and insecticides and there’s even specific language around pollinators,” VanDeWalle said. “There is a ton of research that goes into every product, every protection product in this market in the United States. We provide a lot of research on the environmental and human effects of any chemistry, not just insecticides. We’re doing a lot to train and make sure that the farmers are using it in the right way.”
Cavaletto said that given the multigenerational nature of farming, sustainability is a natural fit for farmers. One thing he said GLC Cerritos recognized with its certifications is that the company was making great strides in sustainability, but it wasn’t as vocal about it. That inspired GLC Cerritos to seek out Rainforest Alliance and fair trade certifications.
“We’re doing a lot of good things already,” he said. “But we’re not telling the story very well.”
VanDeWalle said one thing the audience should understand is that these additional sustainability requirements often add cost and expense to the grower. Often the grower doesn’t get compensation for their efforts.
Cavaletto noted that as GLC Cerritos added certifications and retailer audits, the company quickly realized that those audits and certifications helped start conversations with large accounts.
“GLOBALG.A.P. was an investment that paid for itself when all things being equal between different farmers or different shippers,” he said. “If one has his audit, one doesn’t then it’s easier than you if you can get over that barrier to entry into some of that some of those blue-chip customers. We’ve seen it over time as allowing us to get the nod versus somebody else into some of those more premium accounts.”
And Larson said there are a lot of resources available for farmers in the form of technical and financial support to add biodiversity efforts. She also said retailers should look at adding these requirements as a carrot and the stick approach.
“You have the power here to make requirements of your suppliers but also with that a responsibility to figure out how you can support that whether it’s connecting with technical assistance or cost share different types of contracts,” she said. “Think about how you can also be supporting because the margins are slimmest there at the producer level.”
When Larson was asked about the future of biodiversity metrics, she said she believes that biodiversity will be its own measurement. She said, in many ways, pollinator health was the entry point for retailers and there will likely be an expansion of scope to more forms of biodiversity beyond pollinators into more science-based targets for nature.
“I think some of the data or maybe much of the data already exists at the retailer level from other sources and maybe other audits that are already happening, but I think it’s going to have to be integrated into biodiversity metrics,” she said. “I’m not sure you’ll be able to use water metrics or other metrics to really like represent biodiversity metrics. I think there will be a lot of intersection though in terms of the data supporting them.”
