Crop Protection Stewardship: A Holistic Food Chain Perspective

What is Food Value Chain?

The term Food Value Chain refers to the holistic representation of movement of food from farms through different entities including farmers, agri-input suppliers, distribution chain, storage, food processors and retailing to final consumption as depicted below.
 
Why Food Value Chain must be looked at holistically?

Due to the inherent nature and interdependence of the different entities and actors involved in movement of food from farm to fork, all the entities of the food chain are closely linked to each other. At times they become vulnerable to each other’s activities and can get impacted both positively and negatively, by these activities. Hence, it is necessary to have a holistic view of how actions of an entity affect the others in the chain, in order to understand the true magnitude of the impacts. Particularly, this holistic understanding is paramount to ensure the policies and regulations at the national, regional and global levels are not made in isolation (i.e. considering just one part of the food chain) whilst their implications will be felt across the entire chain – all the way through to consumers.

What are the benefits of having a holistic understanding of the Food Value Chain?

When understood correctly and holistically, the food value chain perspective helps every entity such as farmers, processors, retailers, agro-input suppliers to appreciate and become aware of the implications of their actions on other entities. For examples, if farmers understand about the impacts of using illegal or counterfeit chemicals on food safety & quality from a food processor’s or the consumer’s point of view, they will ensure use of genuine products. Similarly, if the inherent complementarities between different entities are understood correctly and leveraged properly in terms of making the entire food chain demand-driven, quality–focused and scandal-proof.

Any example of impacts of policies that are made without the holistic food chain perspective?

While there are so many around the world and in Asia, recently in a South East Asian country, policies were enacted to limit import of corn (maize) with an aim to boost self-sufficiency through increasing domestic production. But since the country’s economy is growing fast, the demand for chicken meat is rising steadily. Corn is an important raw material for chicken feed and the animal feed manufacturers usually source corn from both domestic and foreign suppliers. They need to import corn to optimize their feed mill running capacities in order to optimize costs and maximize profits. Due to the policy hurdle which was viewed as an intervention only in the corn crop sector, feed manufacturers faced difficulties as they could not import corn. Since domestic supplies are not sufficient to run their feed mills at optimum capacities, this resulted in higher operating costs.

Further, inadequate domestic supplies of corn increased the prices of feed, which is nearly two-thirds of the production cost of a kg of chicken meat. The problem is compounded when domestic corn supplies do not meet the necessary quality standards, which affect ultimately the bird’s performance (otherwise known as FCR – Feed Conversion Ratio or the efficiency of converting more meat out of a kg of feed).Ultimately, all the additional costs were passed on to the consumers leading to significant rise in the retail prices of chicken, one of the most consumed meat in the region.

This seems to be a ‘Trade’ issue. How does it affect the agricultural industry particularly,crop protection sector?

Superficially, it does. But if one looks carefully, the impacts across the food value chain are enormous. While price rise a visible short-term impact on the consumers, indirect impacts on environment, land use, and usage of inputs such as fertilizer and pesticides could be significant in the long-term.

In this case, when imports are blocked, net availability reduces and to fill the gap in demand, local production and productivity of corn need to rise significantly at a much quicker pace. Otherwise,the feed-millers will need to pay more for their raw material. However, this cannot be achieved without ensuring farmers’ access to improved technologies such as high quality seeds and crop protection products. Unlessavailability of good quality inputs is assured, the market may turn into a haven for unscrupulous and illegal players taking advantage of the high demand situation. This may result in crop losses and impact farmer’s incomes,their livelihoods and ultimately become a grave threat to food security of the country. Besides improving productivity, it is also important for the farmers to follow Good Agricultural Practices including responsible and judicious use of crop protection chemicals to ensure yields are maximized and any risks to health and environment are minimized. 

How food safety is a shared responsibility of every entity in the food chain?

Multiple entities such as growers, agricultural input suppliers (including fertilizer and pesticides), commodity sourcing intermediaries, food processing or manufacturing industries, retailers, Governments and other supporting organizations are involved in the food chain. Hence, it is impossible and unfair to hold any one solely responsible for ensuring food that reaches the consumers is safe.

For example, food recalls affect brand reputation of the manufacturers and the retailers alike while it manifests itself into misinterpretations, scares or scandals. Policy makers and Governments will become more concerned about public outrage in the media, which on many occasions turn out to be simply hoax. However, all these impacts the trust and consumers’ confidence on the agri-food sector and the overall regulatory environment in the country.

Hence every entity in the food chain must share the responsibility to ensure food that reaches the consumer is safe and is of good quality at affordable prices. There are appropriate rewards in terms of monetary and non-monetary gains by taking due concern and concerted actions on these issues. Every entity must contribute to ensure safe and sustainable food production to feed a fast growing population particularly in Asia, which will add about a billion people by 2050.

Why food safety & quality aspects are important for all the stakeholders of food chain?

Food safety and quality issues affect health & wellbeing of the population directly. Food scares, scandals, and subsequent recalls impact profitability, marketability, market access, reputation of all the entities of the food chain. For example, if genuine and efficient crop protection chemicals that are already widely used by the farmers are not approved further or their re-registration processes are delayed, the market may become a fertile ground for illegal, counterfeit, fake or banned products to flourish. The same happens if new and efficient molecules are not approved and/or their approvals are delayed due to unnecessary regulatory hurdles. Illegal products containing unknown or banned substances, if used in place of genuine products, may impact food quality and also health and wellbeing of the people. Products that are exported, may face rejections in the import markets.These unscrupulous or banned products pose even greater threat to environment and biodiversity.

How farming practices affect the entire food chain?

Cultivation practices from seed to protecting crops from pests and diseases have huge impacts - both positive and negative - across the food chain. For example, pests and diseases, when not managed properly, may result in economic lossand may also affect nutritional qualities of the produce thereby impacting the livelihoods of the farmers. Not following good practices due to lack of understanding, awareness and training including use of illegal, fake or counterfeit products may cause critical health issues when farmers use them. On the contrary, genuine and good quality seeds along with better technologies, safer and high performance inputs (fertilizers and pesticides), when used with care and judiciously, help enhance crop productivity and food quality.Thus farmers get better incomes andat the same time any risks to ecosystem and biodiversity are minimized.

What is Crop Protection Stewardship?

In crop protection products, commonly referred to as pesticides, which include chemical pesticides,stewardship is a holistic product life-cycle approach whereby their benefits are maximized through responsible and judicious use while risks are minimized through educating the users against indiscriminate and incorrect usage.

Why and how crop protection stewardship becomes most relevant & important for the food chain?

For the farmers -What happens in the farms impacts the entire food chain and goes even further. For example, indiscriminate use of crop protection chemicals leads not only to unnecessary expenditure for the farmers, it may lead to crop losses, development of resistance in pests, presence of excessive residues in the final produce and ultimately impact their incomes. Farmers particularly, those that are engaged in exporting their produce, may face rejection of export consignments and that may cause huge losses. It also affects their reputation and reliabilityas suppliers if they are engaged in contract farming with export marketing companies.

For supply chain intermediaries -Similar is the case for those who are engaged in different functions in the food distribution chain to export as well as domestic consumers. Companies that are engaged in sourcing farm produce from the farmers and exporting or supplying domestically as they will lose their credibility and potential future businesses.

For the livestock / feed sector -Safe and good quality raw materials are the most essential requirements for a profitable animal feed sector and it would be a huge challenge if the raw materials do not meet the mandatory quality standards. Food quality particularly, presence of chemical residues beyond permissible limits and contamination in the farm produce affect both food and feed industries alike. While human health concerns becomes a hot topic, in the livestock sector, meat production and quality are greatly affected. Most of these quality issues in feed raw materials can be addressed appropriately if farmers learn and adopt good agricultural practices including, use of inputs like pesticides judiciously and responsibly.

For food processing companies - First and foremost, their reputation and brand image are at stake when their products manufactured using the primary agricultural commodities found to be non-compliant in terms of quality. This will have far reaching effects on its business prospects in a country, region and possibly globally also. Secondly, they may face legal action according to the laws pertaining to food safety and quality. Further, product recalls may lead to significant loss of revenues and can impact their profits greatly.

For consumers -Concerned domestic consumers may blame the Governments for the discriminatory standards in implementing food quality legislations between exports vis-a-vis domestic consumption.

For the nation - These issues impact the image and reputation of a country particularly when it aspires to become a reliable export hub for agri commodities and also meat products. All these may result in reduced international trade prospects, foreign exchange earnings and impact the economic growth of the nation.

How do CropLife International and its regional networks contribute in this regard?

Croplife International and its member associations are actively promoting responsible and judicious use of crop protection products globally. CropLife Asia is actively involved in capacity building for millions of stakeholders including farmers, retailers, extension personnel and several NGOs since many decades on adopting Integrated Pest Management (IPM), Responsible Use and Safe Storage and Integrated Resistance Management (IRM) under the gamut of Good Agricultural Practices (GAP). These initiatives continue to successfully demonstrate enormous benefits - both tangible and intangible - to all the stakeholders of the food value chain including farmers, agri-input supply chain, food processors and consumers.

Depending on the stakeholders, these efforts are focusing on various aspects including helping farmers realize higher net returns with significant savings in input costs, conforming to the Maximum Residue Limit (MRL) for exports, enable and inspire to adopt IPM principles, use personal protective equipments while handling chemicals, eliminating unnecessary use of pesticides, improved personal health and overall reduction in environmental pollution and possible public health hazards. Through these initiatives farmers increased crop productivity resulting in increased incomes and profits while minimizing the impacts on the ecosystem and also contributing to improving overall rural livelihoods.

What are some of the demonstrable, on ground impacts of these projects?

CropLife Asia and CropLife International promote holistic understanding of the animal-agribusiness sector for establishing enabling and supportive policy and regulatory environments. Synergistic partnerships are critical to help educate and train farmers and other stakeholders to reach maximum number of beneficiaries. For example,

• Safe& Quality Food through IPM and GAP – CropLife Asia provides hands-on training on IPM and GAP for farmers and extension personnel in many countries including Malaysia, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka through multi-stakeholder partnership initiatives. In India, the initiatives are carried out in support of the ‘Grow Safe Food’ campaign led by the Government.

• Occupational health & safety awareness–In Thailand, initiatives in collaboration with Mahidol University experts are focusing on promoting safe handling of pesticides among farmers and professional spray applicators. Similar initiatives are being undertaken in Philippines to educate farmers and applicators on reducing exposure to pesticides and using them safely and responsibly.

• Curbing counterfeits–Supporting the Governments in Korea, Bangladesh, Taiwan and China to address the issue of counterfeits and illegal products through intensive mass awareness-building campaigns educating farmers about the impacts of these products on their health, crop yields and quality and the environment.

• Policy advocacy – CropLife Asia is actively advocating for enabling policies and a regulatory environment that is harmonized, predictable, transparent and science-based to benefit the entire food & agribusiness sector and contribute to the region’s food & nutrition security and its aspiration to expand food trade within and beyond the region.

For more info, visit 
www.croplife.org/crop-protection/stewardship/
www.croplifeasia.org
www.farmingfirst.org