As people around the world demand proof that their food is sustainably produced, Canadian agri-food stakeholders are taking advantage of this opportunity to back up their sustainability claims together.
The National Index of Agri-Food Performance, Canada’s first sustainability index that encompasses the entire agri-food sector, arose from the need to build greater trust with consumers and compete globally in a marketplace that is placing more importance on sustainable food production.
“Other countries are competing on the basis of being the most sustainable food provider, and we really do need a farm-to-retail view of sustainability to give greater confidence in the marketplace, both here and abroad,” says David McInnes, co-ordinator for the National Index of Agri-Food Performance.
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“Our task is really about coming up with the right metrics to show that Canadian food production and supply is safe, sustainable and responsible, and that we have the right process to work pre-competitively amongst those partners on science-based indicators relevant to the Canadian agri-food sector.”
Speaking at the 2021 Canadian Forage and Grasslands Association conference in December, McInnes outlined the motivations for the development of a national index, including the global goals that have been created around sustainability, biodiversity and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. These goals are prompting changes such as sustainability claims driving foreign trade and food companies setting targets to source sustainably produced ingredients.
“This could be a profoundly important opportunity for Canada because of how we present our sustainability credentials and how we position ourselves in the marketplace, but we have to move forward,” he says.
McInnes notes this initiative isn’t meant to be a quick-fix to all issues in this space, but he anticipates positive outcomes over time, including greater consumer trust in Canadian agriculture and food production, more favourable market access and a new way to demonstrate Canada’s efforts to meet global sustainability goals.
“We hope that this index will be relevant to investors to show how Canada is a place to invest because of the confidence in the actions we’re taking to improve sustainability, and this is also an opportunity to enable Canada to play a more vigorous role globally, to represent Canada’s agri-food interests in the global discussions on food systems change,” he says.
“I believe, and our partners believe, that this index could become a lens to look at policy discussions, how this may inform innovation discussions, how this may inform trade policy. This is about better positioning Canada’s agri-food sector for the future.”
More than 50 stakeholder groups, including the Canadian Forage and Grasslands Association and the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, are involved in this initiative, which aims to add value by building on the suite of actions already undertaken in Canadian agri-food production towards sustainability practices.
The index will benchmark four main sustainability priorities: environment, health and food safety, economic impact and societal well-being. As many companies and industries within Canada’s agri-food sector already track sustainability metrics, the national index will complement these programs.
At the time of McInnes’s presentation, the index was in its second of four development phases, determining the metrics that align with the index’s sustainability indicators. “This index needs to be relevant to the Canadian agri-food context, it needs to be validated, science-based, pre-competitively developed in a collaborative effort by the partners, and it’s also outcomes-focused and not prescriptive,” he says.
In this phase, the stakeholders are also looking at the best methods for collecting this data and preparing documents on the anticipated policy implications of the index.
The first version of the index is expected to be launched in pilot form later in 2022. Eventually a Centre for Agri-Food Benchmarking will be established. The proposed centre will manage the index through the guidance of a steering committee and advisory groups.
“We believe that the centre can be and should be co-funded. It can be housed in government where it will have a certain authority and neutrality that will be important for our export markets as well as domestically. But this must be sector-driven, and there must be a shared leadership amongst the players,” says McInnes.
“How we’ve framed it is that a key producer may co-lead the steering group. Industry could co-lead the stakeholder and technical group, which will help develop the metrics, and that other food system players from academia and NGOs can have a seat at the table on various other committees.”
