SFL Newsletter, Feburary 2006

February, 2006

Schools and Hospitals Compare Sustainable Food Initiatives

Clive Peckham and other Food Lab Team members spent months making phone calls and pounding the pavement during the development phase of the Food for Health, Learning and Livelihoods (F4H) Initiative. The result: leaders of sustainable public food initiatives from seven countries, five international organizations and over 20 innovative projects gathered under the Sustainable Food Lab's F4H umbrella to coordinate efforts to promote more sustainable public and institutional food systems. These major government and civil sector organizations learned about the SFL, shared the range of sustainable food initiatives in the health and education sectors and built a future project partnership. Laura Steward, Foodservice Project Manager for the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) said, “I really enjoyed meeting so many enthusiastic people and hearing about all the great work that is going on - and more importantly, seeing the emphasis on working together.” Read more and view reports here. The meeting was organized with support from the King Baudouin Foundation and Belgian National Lottery.

SFL Event: Global Conference on Sustainable Public Food

Rome has agreed in principal to host a global F4H conference in 2007 jointly with AlimenTerra and the Food Lab. Please submit ideas and requests for this event to Clive Peckham. Find out more… © Picture of Rome courtesy of Rome.info

SFL Event: Food Lab to China!

Contingent upon funding and interest from the Lab Team, the Food Lab will collaborate with the Rural Development Institute of China, to convene a two-week U-Process workshop in China. Read more... If interested, contact Hal Hamilton.

Brazil Poultry meets WWF

Osler Desouzart likes to tell the story of how he joined the Sustainable Food Lab (SFL) to “teach some good sense to the NGOs,” and ended up partnering with an NGO for one of his crowning achievements. A fierce business man (by his own description), Desouzart now says he’s doing, “missionary work to spread the Sustainable Agriculture Gospel among Brazilian poultry producers via concrete goals of feed and water usage reduction.” The man who made such an impact on him is Jason Clay, VP, Center for Conservation Innovation and Managing Director of WWF-US’s agriculture program. “I used to meet someone from an NGO and look around for a weapon. Now I offer them tea,” Desouzart said. Desouzart says he has changed as a result of the Lab and he’s taking the poultry industry with him. Read more…

SFL Calendar

· Executive Champions meeting,
February 22-23, 2006, Boston.

· Workshop to establish public food system sustainability metric. May 19, 2006, Cardiff University, UK.

· May 29-June 1 Food Lab Meeting

· Mini Food Lab in China!
October 22-November 2, 2006

· Workshop on setting policy framework for sustainable food systems. Organizers: WHO and SFL. Fall 2006

· Global Food for Health Learning and Livelihoods Conference, Rome, 2007.

Jasper Wyman puts Money in Grower’s Pockets

Jasper Wyman has committed up to $150,000 over five years in a Food Lab inspired project to provide incentives for raspberry growers to incorporate IPM practices, which will be audited to SYSCO standards. According to Ed Flanagan, CEO of Jasper Wyman, the 300 growers average raspberry sales of $1-5,000 per year, and one goal of the program is “to push income benefits down to small farmers.”

Newsletter Archive:

November 2005 (html)

August 2005 (pdf)

June 2005 (pdf)

February 2005 (html)

Other Reports:

Learning Histories 1, 2 and 3

Costa Rica Report (pdf)

Salzburg Report (pdf)

Initiative Team Updates:

The Business Coalition Gathers Steam

In January 24 representatives from 16 leading businesses in the food industry met in Houston at SYSCO headquarters to articulate a shared framework of sustainability and to support common initiatives on standards, packaging and small farmer access to markets. Read more…

Latin America Supply Chain Work

Sylvia Blanchet from ForesTrade reports that the joint group of companies and NGOs working on supply chains in Guatemala have been approved to submit a final proposal to USAID.

Responsible Commodities Refines its Mission

The Responsible Commodities Initiative is in the midst of a discussion about the focus and delivery of its benchmarking tool. There is agreement that it needs to address large scale commodity production and that it must be based on cost effective and demonstrable impacts. There is an ongoing and healthy discussion about how this can be achieved. One team member recently summarized: “Our primary objective is the development of standards for the responsible production and trade of commodities in mainstream markets. What remains unclear is how to get there…" watch this space!

Framing

The Food and Society site has been updated to include two PowerPoints that provide an overview of strategic frame analysis. They were presented in late October 2005 at the Food and Society Project Directors Meeting. For more information about strategic frame analysis, visit www.frameworksinstitute.org. For the PowerPoints, click here:

http://www.foodandsociety.org/default.aspx?PageID=244

Food for Health Learning and Livelihoods

See our feature article

Sustainable Fisheries

Members of the Fish Team continue to research the viability of creating a Sustainable Fish Quota Fund in Iceland for boats which use sustainable fishing practices. To view a PowerPoint describing the quota fund titled, “Small is Beautiful” click here. In addition, team members are working with retailers to develop a brand for the fish. A manager from a large U.S. food retailer is coming to Iceland this month to explore hooking Icelandic small boat fishermen up with his chain. This will be their second visit in less than a year.

Announcements:

· Please review the new FAQ on the website and send comments to Hal Hamilton or Daniella Malin

· Send news, updates, announcements, relevant articles or reports to Daniella Malin