Sourcing of sustainable soya
The enhanced sustainability trend has also led FEDIOL to support or get involved in initiatives aimed at fostering the development of supply streams, preferably mainstream, able to grow and deliver to the European market sustainable products. The Amazon Soy Moratorium set up by Brazilian stakeholders in 2006 has been effective in substantially tackling deforestation at a moment when Brazil was lacking an enforced set of environmental protection and land-use laws. Today, soy is no longer a driver of deforestation in those regions.
On 19 January 2017, FEDIOL decided to join forces with APROSOJA (Mato Grosso farmers), ABIOVE (Brazil Crushers), FEFAC and iDH (Dutch Initiative sustainable Trade) and these players on both sides of the supply chain signed up to a Memorandum of Understanding aimed at promoting good agricultural practices and the compliance with the comprehensive Brazilian environmental and social laws through support to the Soja Pus programme. One of the objectives of this 5-year work programme of the Memorandum is the setting up of a verification system for the Soja Plus programme and the ITC benchmarking of this programme according to FEFAC sustainable soy sourcing guidelines, which FEDIOL has been supporting since 2015.
As a member of the Roundtable for Responsible Soy (RTRS) since 2007, FEDIOL strives to ensure that the RTRS help cover the sustainability requirements of EU manufacturers and at the same time that this imperative do not endanger the multi-stakeholder nature of the roundtable. It is essential to get buy-in by all players, including the farming community, to make multi-stakeholder initiatives a success.
