Sustainable agriculture programme
In Germany, Unilever has worked with UFOP, an independent association that promotes the development of oilseeds and protein crops; the university at Halle; and farmers to develop and publish guidelines for the sustainable management of winter oilseed rape.
We have been working with farmers for many years in developing agricultural best practice guidelines. The guidelines, which are incorporated into our contracts with growers, define soil preparation, fertilisation regimes, harvesting and other activities for our key crops. Current best practice is mainly based on integrated farming principles, and involves appropriate use of fertilisers and pesticides to optimise yield while minimising environmental impacts. The Sustainable Agriculture Programme came into being in the mid-1990s as a continuation of this work.
Our aim
Our aim is to ensure continued access to our key agricultural raw materials, and ultimately to develop market mechanisms that allow consumers and retailers to influence the sourcing of raw materials through their buying habits. Ultimately, our long-term aim is to buy all our agricultural raw materials from sustainable sources so that:
- Farmers and farm workers can obtain an income they can live on and improve their living conditions
- Soil fertility is maintained and improved
- Water availability and quality are protected and enhanced
- Nature and biodiversity are protected and enhanced
This poses a huge challenge for those involved in agriculture: farmers, scientists, experts, governments and businesses.
Improving farming methods
We have chosen to focus on how to improve the sustainability of current farming methods in particular locations, and how to make the production of the crops we need sustainable. We have started to do this where we directly influence agricultural practices used, ie on our own plantations and where we deploy contract farming.
Our programmes
Unilever's work on sustainable agriculture has focused on five key crops – palm oil, peas, spinach, tea and tomatoes. We call these our Lead Agriculture Programmes.
Unilever's impact
Through our Lead Agriculture Programmes, we are investigating ways of farming that protect the environment and maximise social and economic benefits. We are working closely with local growers and planters, research institutes, industry and farmers' associations, local government, NGOs and sometimes community groups.
Progress is measured using our sustainable agriculture indicators (see related links for details). Sustainable agriculture protocols for all our key crops have been published as Good Agricultural Practice Guidelines (GAP guidelines). In 2004, we started engaging with our growers in the use of these guidelines, in co-operation with other partners.
Palm oil
We buy 4% of total world palm oil production – around one million tonnes – every year, mostly from Indonesia and Malaysia. The oil's unique properties make it suitable for use in many everyday products, such as margarine and soaps.
In Ghana, we manage oil palm plantations and smallholder schemes, and also buy palm oil from other Ghanaian producers, for use in our factory in Accra. We are therefore testing a variety of sustainable production techniques for palm oil in Ghana. These include research on integrated pest management for leaf miners – a serious local pest which eats the palm leaves, reduces yield and can even kill the trees if very severe. It also includes recycling organic waste from the palm trees to improve soil quality, planting ground cover crops or terracing land to prevent erosion, protecting forest biodiversity and planting native trees on plantations to act as wildlife reserves and corridors.
The roll-out of the guidelines for palm oil is particularly complicated because of the large number of small-holders involved. Whilst we are working through the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) to help us communicate the guidelines across our widespread supply chain, we have made our own commitment to source all our palm oil from sustainable sources by 2015. See Working with Others for more information.
Vegetables
The sale of most of our European frozen food business in 2006 means we have reduced our work programme in peas and spinach considerably. The vegetables we use in our Italian Findus brand are grown by contract farmers in Italy. Most effort is put into Integrated Pest Management, a pest control management system that involves using less chemicals to control weeds, diseases and insects, together with more cultural and biological controls such as pest and disease resistant crop varieties, crop rotation and natural predators. We have started working with our vegetable suppliers worldwide in programmes that encourage their farmers to adopt sustainable farming practices.
The focus of our activities in 2007 has been to work closely with our supply-chain function to communicate our guidelines to our most significant global suppliers of fruit and vegetables – around 120 in total, representing 65% of our total supply by value. Our brands, particularly Knorr, rely heavily on the ingredients these suppliers provide. We have asked our suppliers to complete a self-assessment against our guidelines and have developed a software system to enable us to store and track this information.
In 2008 we plan to fully implement the software system, building a more accurate picture of the supplier networks so that we can engage more effectively with them on improvements and priority areas.
Tea (Kenya, Tanzania)
After water, tea is the most popular non-alcoholic beverage in the world. Unilever is the world's largest purchaser of black leaf tea, with annual sales of around 300 000 tonnes, which accounts for 12% of world volume of black leaf tea. Unilever tea plantations in Kenya and Tanzania are researching ways to promote good agricultural practices with social and ecological benefits. These include reducing pesticide use and supporting natural diversity by maintaining forest strips in the plantations. Most of the estates are also using plantation fuel wood and hydro-electricity to generate electricity and reduce CO2 emissions.
Good practice guidelines for sustainable tea have been published as leaflets for small-holders in local languages. These help us communicate our approach to the many small tea farmers who supply us.
In 2006, we started a programme to develop farmer field schools in partnership with the Kenyan Tea Development Agency (KTDA) – the umbrella organisation of Kenyan tea grower co-operatives. With technical support from Wageningen University in the Netherlands, and financial support from the UK Department for International Development, these schools aim to help tea growers introduce more sustainable practices. Evidence was mounting in the farmer field schools throughout 2007 that adopting these practices will help farmers improve their gross margins by 5 – 50 %, depending on their starting position. Eventually, KTDA will run the schools itself.
Most recently, in 2007 we announced that all the tea used in our Lipton Yellow Label and PG Tips brands in Western Europe will be sourced from farms certified by the Rainforest Alliance.
We decided that the Rainforest Alliance's certification was the most appropriate because of its comprehensive approach towards sustainable farm management, covering social, economic and environmental aspects. This is very much in line with the way we have been managing our own Sustainable Agriculture Programme over the years.
Tomatoes (Brazil, Greece, US)
Unilever uses about 7% of the world volume of industrially processed tomatoes. Most of our tomatoes are grown under contract by farmers in Brazil, Greece and the United States. We are working with our tomato growers in these three countries to investigate a range of sustainable agriculture practices. So far the programmes have focused on improving soil fertility, water management and pest control. An initial success has been to halve water consumption by using drip irrigation.
In the US we are leading a multi-stakeholder working group to develop a common metric for measuring water use in tomato irrigation. During 2008 we will test this metric and also work with specialists to develop water efficiency advice for farm irrigation.
Extending our agricultural initiatives
We have taken steps to extend our agriculture initiative to all major vegetable oils (including rape, sunflower, soya and olive oil), gherkins in India and dairy.
In India we supply growers with agricultural advice, seeds, fertilisers and pesticides, to enable them to grow gherkins (also known as 'cornichons') for a range of approved suppliers. Unilever offers the farmer a guaranteed price fixed at the start of the season. Both parties benefit. For the farmer, it means a secure income. For Unilever, it means a secure supply for its Amora brand.
We published Good Agricultural Practice Guidelines for winter oilseed rape in spring 2007.
Ben & Jerry's Caring Dairy initiative
Ben & Jerry's promotes sustainable practices in dairy farming through its Caring Dairy programme in Europe and the Dairy Stewardship Alliance in Vermont, US.
The Dairy Stewardship Alliance has developed a self-assessment toolkit which was used by 24 Vermont farmers in 2006. The Caring Dairy programme developed individual improvement plans for all participating farmers. To make this programme visible to consumers, Ben & Jerry's launched a website on sustainable dairy farming which also allows farmers to tell their story (see related links). In 2007, Ben & Jerry's teamed up with Netherlands based cheese producer CONO. Over 500 dairy farmers in the Netherlands now participate in the programme.
The aim is for all the dairy products in Ben & Jerry's ice cream to be produced sustainably by 2008.
Eggs
We are taking animal welfare seriously as a social, ethical concern. We believe that battery cages are animal unfriendly, and in Western Europe we aim to switch entirely our dressings business to barn eggs or free-range eggs well before 2012. Our Hellmann's, Amora and Calvé brands are developing their supply chains to source cage-free the 475 million eggs they use each year. Starting in 2008, Hellmann's mayonnaise in the UK and Ireland will be made with free-range eggs. In April 2008, we received the Good Egg Award from Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) for our intention to move to cage-free eggs.
Colworth Farm Research Centre (UK)
Since 1999, Unilever has been carrying out research into sustainable agriculture on the arable farmland around its research centre at Colworth, Bedfordshire. Researchers have been investigating a range of techniques to reduce the environmental impact of farming, while maintaining yield and profits for farmers. Recently, this research has focused on Controlled Traffic Farming, a system designed to reduce machinery costs while raising crop yields and improving soil health.
