Home In this Issue: Framing Research Results Latin America - updates Business Coalition Meeting Commodities - updates Fisheries -- updates Food for Health, Learning and Livelihoods Commodities Retreat Special mention: Tensie Whelan New Lab Team Members! Newsletter Archive Related news and links: Oxfam-Unilever Report Poverty reduction and international business by Jason Clay The Catch Fishing in Chile - NYT The Clash of the Cafs: A culinary war in secondary school Poor workplace nutrition hits workers’ health and productivity (from ILO) Change on the Horizon A scan of the American Food System Conspiracy of Silence Oxfam on commodities Sustainable Beef in Mexico Establishment of ecological beef market Harnessing market forces to prevent over-fishing Full article costs $7.99. Fast Facts: Transforming the Earth in two generations · More land was converted to agriculture use since 1945 than in the 18th and 19th centuries combined · Water impounded behind dams quadrupled since 1960 and the amount of water held in reservoirs is 3-6 times greater than in natural rivers · More than half synthetic nitrogen fertilizer ever used on the planet occurred since 1985 · Water withdrawals from rivers and lakes doubled since 1960 · Humans increased the species extinction rate by 50-1000 times over typical background rates Source: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment General Synthesis Summary for Decision Makers	November, 2005
	“The essence, the power, of the SFL is that we can do 100 fold, 1,000 fold more together than we can do by ourselves. What we’re doing is the right thing to do, the good thing to do—for the world. It’s also good for our businesses”  – Larry Pulliam, Senior Vice President, SYSCO
	Welcome to the final newsletter before our meeting in Costa Rica. Earth University is a pioneering institution with deep roots in the issues of Sustainable Development. The Review Meeting will focus on the Food Lab team as a whole, informed by the work of the Initiative Teams in the last six months. We will gather collective learning and plan next steps for the work of each of the Initiative Teams as well as create a vision of how this work will continue, grow and spread following June 2006.
		Framing research finds “Modernization” at Odds with “Sustainability”
	The first installment of the US Framing research results are in! Americans are resistant to learning important information about the food system due to many factors including: · cognitively satisfying and experience-based understandings of food that leave out information about how it arrives at the store; · emotional and circumstantial pressure to ignore problems and see food as nurturing and safe; · seeing food systems as just another example of “modernization” where the problems are the “price of progress” and the forward march is inevitable. See excerpts below for how concepts of progress work against efforts to help the public understand the need for more sustainable food system practices. The report is available on the Kellogg website: “Perceptions of the U.S. Food System: What and How Americans Think about Food”.  Framing team member Axel Aubrun and his colleagues at the Frameworks Institute conducted the U.S. research with support from W.K.Kellogg Foundation. Similar research, supported by King Baudouin Foundation, has recently been completed in Europe and will be available in Costa Rica. In phase two, researchers in the U.S. and Europe will test their recommendations for ways communications about food systems might be improved. Excerpts: Modernization (p. 45) The Modernization Model comes pre-assembled with rather rigid understandings about change – including the ideas that it is irreversible, inevitable and to a great extent outside of direct human control.  It also entails a mix of benefits and costs.  But, according to the model, like it or not, progress happens.  These in-built prejudices about the general nature of change present particular challenges to advocates wishing to make changes specific to food systems – especially changes that seems to violate the model.   People’s default assumption is that altering the nature of Food Systems is akin to diverting the course of modernization, a project most people would regard as foolish or hopeless. Sustainability (p. 48) There is virtually no familiarity with the term, except among a small percentage of active, environmentally-oriented individuals. People do not know what “sustainability” means in regard to agriculture, and cannot guess why our food systems might be unsustainable, except in two senses:  Some are aware that soil “wears out” over time, and many guess that the term “sustainability” refers to economic viability – i.e. the idea that it is harder and harder for farmers to pass their farms along to their children. The very concept of sustainability (preserving things as they are) is a direct contradiction of normal attitudes toward progress. Clearly, the Sustainability argument is one that has yet to be made in an effective way with the public – and just as clearly, this argument will be fighting uphill against understandings of modernization. Conclusion: (p. 55) Americans have rich sets of understandings and associations related to food, which reduce their interest in and ability to grasp new information. They also lack a fundamental concept – the idea of a food system. For lack of such a conceptual model, they make certain reasonable guesses and a number of false assumptions about the American food system, by drawing on some fragmentary knowledge about food and where it comes from, plus their rich but generic understanding of Modernization. Finally, their stance towards food – primarily the Consumer Stance and the passive Food Receiver stance – actually motivates them not to want to understand. Given this combination of factors, it is not surprising that advocates have had a difficult time making headway on some crucial issues. Nonetheless, as communicators continue to develop conceptual approaches that offer the public concrete new ways of understanding the food system and our relationship to it, there is an opportunity for real and important progress.
	Background on Framing Initiative: How people think about food determines what information they can assimilate about the important issues surrounding food production. How people think about food also determines their choices as consumers and citizens. To accelerate the shift of responsibly produced food from niche to mainstream, consumers everywhere need to demand it, retailers need to be able to sell it, and governments need support for policies that ensure it. This initiative looks at what prevents mainstream consumers from driving this shift. Researchers are using recent advances in cultural anthropology and cognitive linguistics to discover dominant frames through which people think about food in order to reframe “sustainable food” more compellingly.
		Latin America – updates
	Guatemala – Team members are continuing to develop proposals for USAID support for small holder livelihood work in both Guatemala and at the Central America regional level.  Funding could begin as early as January 2006. The project would support work with interested Food Lab companies to collaboratively assess the “fair return” of current supply chains and innovate economically viable ways to integrate smaller farmers into supply chains. A key component of the proposals is to carefully document learnings in order to share new methodologies with Food Lab partners. Dominican Republic – Building on connections in the Food Lab, Latin American Team member Frederick Payton of AgroFrontera, a nonprofit rural development organization located in Guayubin, Dominican Republic, is working with farmers, food companies, and other food supply chain stakeholders to design and pilot food supply chains that will improve the livelihoods of small holder farm families. “We’re looking at increasing their participation in both export and local and regional supply chains so that farmers have more say in how that supply chain is organized and functions.  We can leverage that increase in food supply chain ownership to find ways to improve the nutrition, health and income in their communities,” Payton said.  The project is a collaboration between commercial companies (both wholesalers and retailers), NGO’s and farmer groups, Government officials, the banking sector and community leaders. “What I like about the Food Lab is that it gives us those linkages and challenges us to examine those linkages in greater depth. We are able to find synergies among food supply chain stakeholders and speak a common language about barriers and opportunities,” He said. “And that common language is key. As long as you can speak in a transparent way between sectors then you can really build a food supply chain that has some integrity to it. You get trust and with trust comes innovation and then you can really decide what the costs and benefits are, socially, culturally, economically and politically.”
	Background on Latin America Initiative: Bringing small-scale farmers back into supply chains in ways that promote better livelihoods and more sustainable production has potential to reduce the very significant rural poverty throughout Latin America.  The recent rapid growth of mass retailing has been disruptive for small farmers. They generally lack bargaining power; they lack strategies to cope with rising private standards and new market dynamics; and they find it difficult to engage in commercial trading. In this initiative NGOs connected to small farmers are working directly with businesses and governments to use market access opportunities to improve the competitiveness and sustainability of small-scale farming systems.
		Business Coalition – Seattle Meeting
	Starbucks hosted the most recent Business Coalition at their headquarters in Seattle. After introducing some of the new members, including Luba Abrams and Ana Fernandez from US Foodservice, Larry Pulliam of SYSCO said, “It’s pretty unusual that fierce competitors like SYSCO and USFoodservice can come together and work for the higher good. That’s what it’s all about. The essence, the power, of the SFL is that we can do 100 fold, 1,000 fold more together than we can do by ourselves. What we’re doing is the right thing to do, the good thing to do—for the world. It’s also good for our businesses. There’s a competitive advantage for SYSCO to be involved, but we can’t fully realize that competitive advantage without working together with others in this group to mainstream sustainability.” Several people from Starbucks visited the meeting. One talked about how “partnering with NGOs is crucial to work in sustainability.” Gene Kahn and others talked about the importance of metrics to measure the impact of new practices, particularly those designed to enable small farmers to improve their livelihood. The whole group chose the following three areas of primary focus between now and June 2006: Market Access for Small and Mid-Sized Farmers, and Financing Support Sheri Flies (Costco) leader, with Charles Hallock, Rabobank; Sylvia Blanchet, ForesTrade; Luba Abrams, US Foodservice; Jeff Fisher, Heinz; Ed Flanagan, Jasper Wyman; Larry Pulliam and Craig Watson, SYSCO; Theresa Marquez, Organic Valley; Dennis Macray, Starbucks Sustainable Packaging Bill Shepherd (Robinhood and General Mills) leader, with Ana Fernandez, US Foodservice; Ron Dudley, Cargill; Margaret Papdalos and colleagues, Starbucks. Standards and Compliance Craig Watson, SYSCO, leader, with Norm Clubb, Unilever NA; Ana Fernandez and Luba Abrams, US Foodservice; Larry Pulliam, SYSCO; Sheri Flies, Costco; Sylvia Blanchet, ForesTrade; Ron Dudley, Cargill. A Business Coalition Executive Committee has formed and is led by Larry Pulliam and Craig Watson from SYSCO, Norm Clubb from Unilever NA, and Ana Fernandez from US Foodservice. Jeroen Bordewijk of Unilever participated in the meeting, particularly to encourage shared learning and collaboration with food companies based in Europe. Jeroen shared his hope that, “this group can bring leadership from North America that is now missing in the food industry.”
	Background on Business Coalition Initiative: The food system is driven by market forces. Businesses must lead if the food system is to demonstrate better environmental and social performance, as well as profitability. Founding businesses in the Coalition, collaborating with other Food Lab initiatives, are working on more sustainable packaging, increasing market access for small farmers, raising standards for commodity procurement, improving audit standards, and marketing sustainability. This new coalition of U.S. businesses is exploring the support of a Brazilian business coalition and shared learning with associations in Europe and Australia.
		Commodities - updates
	A major component of the current RCI work is original research commissioned shortly after the Salzburg meeting and now coming to completion. The research includes side by side analysis of selected commodities: coffee, soybeans, cotton, cocoa, and bananas. The aim is to establish a common understanding of the scope, objectives and processes that underpin existing standards and certification systems. As such it will form the basis of subsequent work within the RCI project to define a meta–standard for certification systems. Specifically, the work compares existing and draft programs in four key areas— (i) how they each developed, (ii) their stated goals, (iii) what do they claim to do, and (iv) what do they actually measure. In addition, the work explores the cost to producers of complying with different procurement requirements for bananas, including cash expenditures as well as overall staff time and data management systems. This side of the research has three goals. The first is to identify the range of “costs” and who pays these costs—the producer, the exporter/consolidator, the importer, etc. The second goal of this research is to estimate the total cost of complying with procurement procedures on the FOB price of bananas (the point it leaves the farm). The third goal of the research is to identify areas where the requirements of different procurement systems are the same or largely similar and harmonization is not only possible but could potentially reduce overall costs to producers and buyers. Initial findings of much of this work will be presented in Costa Rica and the intent is that findings will be disseminated within the Food Lab community and more broadly. RCI has also begun to exploring how it can support the efforts of other initiatives, including the Business Coalition, Latin America and Food 4 Health teams. RC Initiative Team members have also been active at international meetings: Jason Clay provided a keynote speech at the recent EUREPGAP conference in Paris and has been proactive in discussions with groups such as the International Institute for Environment and Development and International Institute for Sustainable Development to ensure that there is growing awareness of the RCI program – and two way learning. RCI members also participated in the recent commodities retreat in New England. The team remains optimistic about further recruitment from the financial as well as corporate sectors.
	Background on Responsible Commodities Initiative: The top eight agricultural commodities such as corn, rice wheat and soy provide more than 80 percent of human calories. Commodity markets affect food prices everywhere. Improvements in standards of commodity production can have impact world wide on urgent problems – soil fertility, toxicity, labor, poverty, water quality, water supply, biodiversity and other social, environmental and economic factors. Team members active in current efforts in palm oil, cotton, soy, sugar and other commodities are cross-referencing and benchmarking these efforts to develop a meta-standard that is monitorable and measurable. The meta-standard will provide guidance on the essential ingredients for credible standards to be adopted. This simplified information flow will enable improvements to be driven by shareholder activists, traders, retailers, wholesalers and producers, as well as bankers and financial asset managers.
		Sustainable Fisheries – updates
	Chile – Andre Gonzolas, a leader at the Department of Fisheries in Chile attended the Fish Team’s Learning Journey in China in August and learned about the Food Lab’s Chile project.  Lab Team member Daniel Bernier reports that Gonzolas was “very excited” about the project and offered to help expand the number of Chilean partners, specifically producers. Gonzolas suggested that the project first create a space where small scale fish harvesters and farmers can come together to establish trust and develop partnerships. He noted that Chile is already participating in the WWF Roundtables focused on aquaculture. As a result Bernier feels there is a strong commitment from the Chilean Government to advance the project.  Pedro Avendaño Garcés recently held meetings in Chile with project partners and we look forward to his update. Iceland – Lab Team members Arthur Bogason and Bruce Tozer continue to further define the Quota Fund concept and to look for funding sources.  Both Bogason and Tozer have developed power point presentations that explain the fund which will transfer quota from trawlers to long line fish harvesters. China – Lab Team members Pierre Vuarin and Daniel Bernier report that as a result of the Fish Team’s August Learning Journey in China, Chinese officials are considering launching a Food Lab of their own as early as Fall 2006.  China is in a “harmonization” phase, looking to balance/ harmonize the environmental and the economic aspects of their policies, making the timing for such a project ideal.  Lab Team member Pierre Vuarin has invited two key Chinese participants to Costa Rica. West Africa – Lab Team members participated in the West African Association for the Development of Artisanal Fisheries (ADEPA WADAF) meeting in September. This goal of this meeting was to create codes of conduct for fishing in the region. This conference was very well attended with 109 participants from 16 countries.
	Background on Sustainable Fisheries Initiative: Fish is a major source of protein world wide and more than 70 percent of the world’s fishery resources (for which there is information) are fully fished or over fished.  Fish harvesting practices and policies that preserve stocks are known and increasingly necessary. Team members from this initiative include one of the world’s largest retailers of fish and heads of fisherman’s organizations, Projects build on current best practices or innovates new ways to retail fish that is harvested in a way that replenishes stocks and supports fisherman, coastal communities and ecosystems.
		Food for Health Learning and Livelihoods
	Joining us for the Food for Health discussions in Costa Rica will be John Turenne from Sustainable Food Systems and Jamie Harvie from Health Care without Harm.  On the European side, Clive Peckham is planning a very significant event in Paris in December bringing together buyers, NGOs, the World Health Organization and others working on improving institutional food purchasing from at least 5 different countries. This meeting will launch a forum for exchanging practices and collaborating on pilot projects for more ambitious change.
	Background on Food For Health Learning and Livelihoods Initiative: Institutional food services in hospitals and schools are well placed to educate the public, build consumer demand and drive supply chain infrastructure improvements for responsibly produced food. Institutional food services have massive buying power and access to school children and patients. They are flagships of food policy and expressions of the value that society puts on food. Team members in this initiative are implementing innovations, disseminating best practices and exploring policy and budgetary changes to accelerate the movement of healthy and sustainable food to institutional settings.
	Commodities Retreat
	The genesis of an October Commodities Retreat was the question, posed by Peter Senge to Lab Team facilitiators Hal, Susie and Don early this year, “How are the prototyping initiatives addressing the systemic challenges?” Senge, director of the Center for Organizational Learning at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and author of The Fifth Discipline (Doubleday/Currency, 1990), opened the meeting expressing tremendous interest in the Food Lab. “This Food Lab is probably the most ‘systemic learning’ and ‘change process’ I’ve yet seen,” he said. Using a background in systems dynamics shared by Senge and Sustainability Institute staff, participants mapped two Food Lab Initiatives. Their goal was to build shared language and logic with which to have more effective ongoing strategic conversations about the Lab Team’s work together. Participants explored the core dynamics of the “race to the bottom” in commodities: the systemic forces at play driving production upward, price downward and environmental and social considerations to the margins (see, Commodity System Challenges, Sustainability Institute Report, 2003). Food Lab member, Jan Kees Vis outlined the challenge from his perspective: “In the first mission statement we ever wrote in Unilever for our sustainable agriculture initiative it said that once we put our heads around what sustainable agriculture actually is… we would also get market mechanisms that could help the markets for sustainable products. And that for me, has always been the heart of the problem … I have until this very day, never been able to actually see through how we can change the modeling of markets so that they would support sustainability solutions. De-commodification might be the only solution to achieving what it is that we want to achieve, but we would meet with formidable opposition and formidable resistance if that were the solution that we were going to suggest, resistance from many different places. So, although de-commodification might be a solution for part of the market for some supply chains, I don’t think that it would be the final solution, but I don’t know what is.” After examining the basic forces participants explored two initiatives, one aimed at supply chain restructuring (Guatemalan green beans) and another studying the behavior of one large scale commodity (cocoa) as a way to apply the model concretely. Briefing notes will be available soon.
	New Lab Team Members
			The Food Lab welcomes Thomas Fricke and Sylvia Blanchet of ForesTrade. ForesTrade, imports organic spices and coffee from Sumatra, Java, Bali and Lombok in Indonesia, and from Guatemala, Grenada, Uganda, Sri Lanka and India. Blanchet and Ficke both have extensive backgrounds in agriculture, environmentalism and Third World development and have spent most of their lives living and working in the non-profit sector. After years of experience there, Fricke realized that most development projects are flawed and frail. ForesTrade is his way of testing a new theory: the only way to get people to protect resources and support conservation is if they get a financial return.
	The Food Lab welcomes Ed Flanagan of Jasper Wyman & Son, the largest US-owned grower of wild blueberries. Wymans is also a cranberry grower and is extensively involved in Chile with the growing and processing of other berry fruits. Flanagan has been the President of Wyman’s since 1995.  Prior to that he worked 12 years for H.P. Hood in dairy and citrus.
	The Food Lab welcomes Luba Abrams of U.S. Foodservice (USF). USF is a division of Ahold USA and a leading foodservice distributor generating $18 billion in annual sales and serving all 50 states. Abrams leads the development and implementation of corporate and segment marketing strategies including chain and independent restaurants, government, education and hospitality customers. Abrams grew up steeped in food discussions. Her mother helped France Moore Lappé work on her revised edition of Diet for a Small Planet, one of the pioneering books on the connection between healthy eating and ending world hunger.
	Previous Newsletters and Reports
	· Learning Histories 1, 2 and 3 Newsletters: · August 2005 (pdf) · June 2005 (pdf) · February 2005 (html) Salzburg Report (pdf)
	Special congratulations! to Tensie Whelan and Rainforest Alliance for making it on to the shortlist for the Alcan Prize for Sustainability, a $1 million prize to be awarded each year to not-for-profit, non-governmental, and civil society organizations that are working diligently to make our world a better place. The prize recognizes and rewards organizations that have made and continue to make significant contributions to integrating economic, environmental, and social sustainability for the benefit of present and future generations. Of the close to 200 entries received from 59 countries around the world, 10 organizations made the shortlist of candidates being considered. Prize recipients will be announced in December. This is a terrific honor!