The 2022 Agri-Pulse Ag & Food Policy Summit held on March 21 had a panel of speakers from major agriculture corporations and organizations: Danone North America, Farmer Focus, Almond Alliance of California and PepsiCo. This is the first time the summit has ever invited company stakeholders.
The topic of the panel was to hear directly from these corporations on what they would like to see in the 2023 farm bill.
Sustainability
The main topic that dominated the panel was about bolstering the conservation segment of the farm bill, specifically increasing funding and access to sustainable practices for farmers and producers. The speakers also agreed that agriculture companies should be a part of establishing sustainability policies because they know the industry better then the lawmakers.
Some policies that they recommended during the panel included the potential for an increase of 300 million acres of crop rotation, not just corn and soybeans, and the potential for integrated animal agriculture and grasses.
The company representatives also agreed that when it comes to conservation and sustainability, cooperation will be a more effective strategy than competition. “It's not about mitigating the bad anymore. It's about being a force for good,” according to one speaker. This is one of the main reasons that there are discussions about the possibility of forming a climate coalition of food corporations similar to the Climate Alliance, a coalition of governors, which would focus on ways to decrease greenhouse gas emissions.
The panelists also spoke on the importance of a standardized measuring and reporting system to monitor the effectiveness of a company’s sustainability practices. However, this creates a new challenge on how to have a standardized system for different types of crops.
Labor
The representatives also acknowledged that consumers care more about the treatment of workers and farmers and that steps need to be taken to provide better working environments. However, there is currently a disconnect between what consumers say in surveys regarding the topic and how that impacts what they buy at the grocery store.
The two main steps that the panelists highlighted were providing more training and resources on risk management and investing in better infrastructure for farmers.
