Using money saved by trading down on staples, hybrid consumers are trading up to premium, high-end products that matter most from an emotional and social perspective, such as premium brands in supermarkets and fine dining. As a result of this trend, the food retail sector will become increasingly polarised into value and premium, with middle ground players struggling to retain market share.

Marc Kennis, Senior Analyst, Rabobank Food & Agribusiness Research and Advisory, commented: “The implications of this market trend are profound and touch on areas such as product offerings, distribution channels, marketing and brand management. Given the driving forces of hybrid consumption, i.e. women’s increasing role in household spending and the growing importance of Millennials (generations Y and Z), we believe that hybrid consumption is a long lasting phenomenon. Therefore food processors, food retailers and food service companies alike will need to adapt or risk fading away.”

Rabobank has identified the three main forces driving the hybrid consumer trend:

Socio-demographic developments. The growth of women’s purchasing power and increasing influence over household spending is a major factor; research indicates women are more objective than men when it comes to food purchasing decisions. Additionally, younger generations who grow up using social media are more likely to make food choices based on merits rather than on the specific brand loyalty.

Food retailer strategies. The advent of discounters has added to consumers’ options to trade down, and in recent years private label products have increased trading up options. Increased use of the internet as a tool to compare products and prices has also led to greater consumer awareness regarding food product purchasing.

Macro-economic developments. The recent global recession has accelerated the existing market dualisation. Constraints on disposable income and falling confidence has encouraged trading down on basic items. At the same time, consumers still want to occasionally indulgences themselves, even in times of economic hardship and are willing to pay a bit extra for premium quality.

Hybrid consumer patterns are reflected in the growth rates of retailers. Those geared towards the mid-market are showing lower growth rates over a longer period than their peers at the extreme ends of the spectrum. Between 2007 and 2012, above average performers in the US were either hard discounters, such as Aldi, or premium formats, such as Whole Foods and HE Butt Grocery. Similar trends exist in Western Europe. Growth rates at mid-market operators, such as Morrison’s, Tesco, Sainsbury and Asda, have been clearly lower than at discounters such as Aldi and Lidl as well as upmarket retailers, such as Waitrose.

Capturing the hybrid opportunity

Rabobank identifies a range of strategies and tactics that will allow nimble food processors, food retailers and food service companies to benefit from the rise of the hybrid consumer.

These include:
• Move up to the premium segment of a specific product category. For example, by offering healthier alternatives, using more natural ingredients and incorporating corporate social responsibility as well as sustainable business practices. The French spirits company, Pernod Ricard, is an example of a company that has been successful in ‘premiumising’ its product offering.

• Offer ‘value’ products within the premium segment and ‘premium’ products within the value segment. By doing so, retailers can cater to consumers that have become more cost-conscious due to waning consumer confidence and purchasing power. UK retailer Waitrose offers bakery products under a premium private label, thus enabling increasingly cost-conscious, customers to continue shopping at their favourite high-end supermarket but at a lower cost.

• Use value products to sell premium products. Supermarkets and food service outlets can use this strategy to attract customers with value-for-money propositions, while simultaneously aiming to sell premium, more expensive products to these same customers. A well known UK-based coffee chain, for instance, offers coffee to-go at relatively low price points to generate traffic and simultaneously aims to sell higher priced food products, such as premium sandwiches.
Rabobank Group is a Netherlands based, international financial services provider operating on the basis of cooperative principles. Rabobank Food & Agribusiness Research and Advisory (FAR) is Rabobank’s global F&A Knowledge Provider. FAR comprises a global team of analysts that continuously accumulates knowledge in major F&A sectors, issues and trends.

For more information about the Rabobank Group go to http://www.rabobank.com.

By Sylvain Charlebois, Associate Dean – College of Management and Economics, University of Guelph

The Canadian Dairy Commission is finally recognizing it needs to change. We may, in fact, be witnessing the emergence of a new approach: let’s call it Supply Management 2.0, if you will. The Commission recently created a new milk class for mozzarella cheese, which takes effect June 1 and which is expected to reduce costs for Canadian-made mozzarella used by restaurants that make pizza. But whether or not pizza will become more affordable for Canadian consumers remains to be seen.

Regardless, mounting macroeconomic forces are compelling dairy farmers to rethink their strategy around supply management.

Supply management, Canada’s production quota system for dairy and other commodities, was established more than 50 years ago to balance supply and domestic demand for dairy products. Prohibitive tariffs, coupled with quotas, on dairy product imports sometimes exceed 300 per cent.

Many food processors in Canada, including the food service sector, were forced to look for different ways to reduce production costs. Importers found a way to circumvent current rules to escape duties; one company in particular, Pizza Pizza Ltd., became good at it.

Pizza Pizza Ltd., one of the largest pizzeria chains in the country, figured out it could purchase mozzarella in packaged cheese-and-pepperoni pizza topping sets in the United States and import them into Canada. It was estimated that as much as 4,000 tonnes of American-made mozzarella was now coming into Canada annually in duty-free kits. While it was very convenient for the company, import volumes became so significant that dairy farmers felt the need to fight. Unsurprisingly, dairy farmers decided to challenge Pizza Pizza’s practice before the courts. It was an obscure, lengthy battle before the Canadian International Trade Tribunal, which is still ongoing, that has led to the loosening of the regulation on imported mozzarella, set for June 1.

The current government in Ottawa has made market access a top priority. Canada is trying to close a trade deal with the European Union while reaching out to the ever-growing Asia-Pacific market by engaging with the Trans-Pacific Partnership. But Canada’s continuing attempt to have it both ways – demanding greater access to other markets while essentially prohibiting access to our market for some commodities, like dairy – has undermined our moral authority abroad when negotiating trade deals.

Essentially, dairy farmers don’t have a choice. They need to change and supply management, in its current unbending, inadaptable form, needs to improve.

For years, dairy farmers believed that altering supply management in any way, however insignificant, would lead to the end of supply management as a whole. And as Canada’s economic architecture is so focused on trade, supply management, they believed, could very well disappear one day.

Fortunately, the creation of a new milk category signals that dairy farmers are now willing to recognize that some situations warrant adjustments.

Because of Canada’s demographic situation, domestic growth is impossible. Milk consumption per capita in Canada is at an all-time low, and dairy farms in Canada are disappearing, despite our protectionist policies. In 1971, when supply management in dairy came into effect, there were 122,000 dairy farms in the country. Today, there are fewer than 13,000.

A demand-focused approach to dairy products and research is clearly needed. Supply management once played an important role in our agricultural economy, but those days are long gone.

The Commission’s move, no matter how small, is welcome news. A new supply management model should increase the competitive advantage of our food processing and food service sectors, not destroy it. But if this tactic fails to provide continuing evidence that supply management can adapt, it will need to go.

Article provided by Troy Media http://www.troymedia.com

Canada needs a “Blue Revolution” of its own so it can start wringing from its waters the same bounty of food and prosperity that its land has yielded for generations, says a study by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute released today.

Aquaculture should be every bit as synonymous with Canada as wheat or beef, given the enormous length of this country’s coastline and the world-class expertise in fish farming that exists here, said the author, Brian Lee Crowley, managing director of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

“Instead, we are literally treading water,” “Aquaculture is one of those places where we have got it wrong.”

Canada’s aquaculture industry has stagnated in recent years, the victim of a cumbersome and inefficient regulatory system, restrictive tariff and non-tariff barriers, special interest groups, and an antiquated system of property rights that makes little distinction between wild fish gathered in the open ocean and those that are farmed.

“Only one factor explains our lack of progress: the rules and institutions under which we operate,” Mr. Crowley said. “We have not created the conditions in which it is worthwhile to invest capital in aquaculture.”

In Canada, aquaculture production has varied only slightly between 155,000 and 175,000 tonnes over the past decade. If anything, total production was slightly lower in 2010-2011 than in 2000-2001. While average annual rates of growth in the industry for the rest of the world are 6 percent or more, Canada’s output has fallen outright.

Yet, the so-called Blue Revolution – taking food production off the land and into the waters of the globe – is already well advanced, Mr. Crowley said.

“Aquaculture is the fastest growing source of food in the world at the moment. Global demand for seafood is increasing by almost 10 percent a year. A fifth of humanity finds its main source of protein in fish, and those people are concentrated disproportionately in the developing world.”

Global production reached 73 million tonnes in 2009, over seven times the total in 1984. Between 1970 and 2008, the worldwide production of food fish from aquaculture rose at an average annual rate of nearly 10 percent, while the world population grew at an average of less than 2 percent a year.

“And yet for the last decade in Canada the industry has at best just marked time, while other producers in New Zealand and Norway and Scotland and Chile have raced ahead,” Mr. Crowley said.

Aquaculture is a clear case of Canada failing to live up to its natural and human endowment, he said.

“The world beats a path to our natural resources, but not chiefly due to the resources themselves. What makes that endowment almost uniquely valuable in the world is that it exists within another vastly more important endowment of rules, institutions, and behaviours in Canada.”

Mr. Crowley said companies can invest billions of dollars to unlock opportunities, such as the oil sands, reasonably secure in the knowledge that the fiscal, regulatory, and contractual conditions they will face over a period of years are sufficient to recoup their investment and make some money.

“It is precisely the absence of several aspects of the institutional endowment that make our aquaculture resources highly undesirable as a place to invest”, he said.

“Secure property rights and stability of the regulatory regime were key in unlocking the long-term capital investment that has created such wealth elsewhere for Canada in natural resources. This is exactly what is lacking in aquaculture.”

Mr. Crowley calls for a five-point strategy. Foremost would be to establish the same private property rights in aquaculture that exist in agriculture. This would entail giving fish farmers ownership of the means of production and exclusive rights to the profit gained from using those means.

“If outright ownership is not possible, the alternative should be to issue high-quality leases and licences for a sufficient length of time to encourage investment in water quality, equipment, and fish health,” Mr. Crowley said.

In addition, Canada must eliminate tariff and non-tariff barriers that stand in its way of reaching markets. This will require reforming our thinking about food and agricultural trade, Mr. Crowley said.

“We need to stop giving up so much of our international trade negotiating power to protect a few small supply-managed sectors that serve only a tiny domestic market, and instead use our negotiating power to open up the international opportunities in foreign markets,” he said.

“Our grain farmers recently won this freedom. It is imperative that we not stop there, but integrate all of our food producers into that web of international rules and institutions that are part of the institutional endowment that confers success in Canada.”

Other strategies include creating an independent government agency to regulate and support aquaculture; replacing politicized decision-making with objective cost-benefit analysis in disputes concerning aquaculture; and reforming the cumbersome regulatory approach to aquaculture to encourage farmers and food processors to adopt new technologies and products.

Brian Lee Crowley (twitter.com/brianleecrowley) is managing director of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, an independent non-partisan public policy think tank in Ottawa. 

The Macdonald-Laurier Institute is the only non-partisan, independent national public policy think tank in Ottawa focusing on the full range of issues that fall under the jurisdiction of the federal government. 

http://www.macdonaldlaurier.ca 

As forecasters continue to downgrade their near-term projections for the global economy, many countries are stepping up efforts to conclude new trade agreements with key commercial partners. In just the past four months, the United States has announced that it wants to reach a free trade accord with the European Union, Japan has joined the discussions taking place under the rubric of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and work on trade liberalization has accelerated among the members of the Association of Southeast East Asian Nations.

The backdrop for these regional negotiations is both a soft world economy and an ever diminishing prospect of finalizing a major new global trade deal through the long-stalled World Trade Organization (WTO) talks – the so-called “Doha Round.” The
WTO process has essentially broken down, overwhelmed by the complexity of the contemporary multilateral trade agenda and by the inherent difficulty of achieving consensus among the 150 plus countries that comprise the WTO’s increasingly fractious membership.

Where does Canada fit within this evolving global commercial policy landscape? Canada is part of the ongoing TPP process. In addition, Ottawa has inked a draft free trade agreement with South Korea, although it has yet to give a clear signal that it is committed to ratifying or implementing it. We are also participating in preliminary talks with India and Japan aimed at fashioning bilateral trade agreements with these important nations. But the most significant trade negotiation in which Canada is currently engaged is that with the European Union (EU) to establish a new Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).

At a time when parts of Europe are mired in recessionary gloom, one might ask whether developing an agreement with the EU ought to be a priority for Canada. Yet there are several reasons why CETA is a worthwhile goal for Ottawa to pursue.

First, notwithstanding the old continent’s economic and demographic challenges, the 27-member EU still ranks as the world’s biggest regional market, with a combined gross domestic product (GDP) exceeding $17 trillion (compared to $15 trillion for
the United States). It’s also a notably affluent place, being home to quite a few of the world’s richest economies. CETA would give Canadian businesses improved access to a market of more than 500 million people.

Second, because most EU member states are both prosperous and highly developed, the region as a whole is characterized by well-established labour and environmental standards. This should ameliorate any concerns that entering into a trade agreement with the EU would exert downward pressure on regulatory standards here in Canada.

Third, it’s well understood that Canada needs to diversify our trade and investment relationships and reduce over-reliance on the United States (still the destination of three-quarters of Canada’s exports). Expanding trade and investment with the EU is an obvious way to broaden Canada’s commercial linkages.

Fourth, as noted above the United States has started working toward its own bilateral trade agreement with the EU. Canada has spent more than four years in deliberations with the Europeans, and recent reports suggest the two sides are close to the finish line. It’s crucial that Canada is able to get a deal done with the EU before we are displaced and potentially bypassed by the U.S.

Finally, CETA is expected to deliver a boost to our economy by reducing EU barriers to Canadian exports, fostering more two-way investment, and leading to more competitive markets. Some studies estimate that an ambitious trade agreement with the EU would lead to a $12 billion increase in Canada’s GDP, equivalent to $1,000 per Canadian family.

True, there are a number of politically sensitive issues in the Canada-EU talks. They include market access for certain agricultural products, the extent to which government procurement will be opened up to suppliers based in the other party, the rules governing foreign investment, and harmonization of intellectual property standards.

But while these may be tough nuts to crack, none should be deal-killers. After all, in a strategic sense Canada has more to gain than lose from achieving better access to a market that is approximately 11 times bigger than our own economy.

Column provided by Troy Media (www.troymedia.com).

investigate potential growth-climate relationships in Greek fir trees growing on Ainos Mountain on the island of Cephalonia in the Ionian Sea, which region, in his words, “has recently experienced some of the largest climatic drying in the globe.”

As a result of what he calls this “pronounced shift to greater aridity in recent decades,” he states that “this region offers unique opportunities to investigate [tree] growth responses to drought, particularly with relevance to elevated atmospheric CO2, which is thought to confer moisture conservation benefits in arid and semiarid settings by allowing plants to reduce their stomatal conductance and
increase their water utilization efficiency (WUE),” citing the work of Wullschleger et al. (2002), Morgan et al. (2004) and Huang et al. (2007).

Setting out to do just that, Koutavas developed growth indices from cores he extracted from 23 living Greek fir (Aibes cephalonica) trees located between elevations of 1300 and 1600 meters for the period AD 1820-2007; and from those indices he reports finding that the growth of the trees historically has been “limited by growing-season moisture in late spring/early summer, most critically during June.” However, he further finds that “this simple picture obscures a pattern of sharply evolving growth-climate relationships during the 20th century,” wherein the “correlations between growth and June temperature, precipitation and Palmer Drought Severity Index were significantly greater in the early 20th century but later degraded and disappeared”. In fact, Koutavas writes that “by the late 20th-early 21st century, there remains no statistically significant relationship between moisture and growth.”

The story does not end there. According to Koutavas, in spite of the “pronounced shift to greater aridity in recent decades,” tree growth in the region actually experienced “a net increase over the last half-century, culminating with a sharp spike in AD 1988-1990,” which growth increase implies that the trees have acquired a “markedly enhanced resistance to drought.” So how did that happen?

Such observations, in the words of Koutavas “are most consistent with a significant CO2 fertilization effect operating through restricted stomatal conductance and improved water-use efficiency.” And he also opines that “if this interpretation is correct” — and what other interpretation could there possibly be? — “atmospheric CO2 is now overcompensating for growth declines anticipated from drier climate,
suggesting its effect is unusually strong and likely to be detectable in other up-to-date tree-ring chronologies from the Mediterranean.”

There we have it. The increasing concentration of atmospheric CO2 appears to be the most important factor driving recently enhanced growth rates of Greek fir trees. And it is doing so in spite of unfavorable moisture conditions and declining temperatures that should be causing growth declines. Not bad for a growth-promoting and life-sustaining molecule that some have incorrectly labeled a “pollutant.”

To learn more about the benefits of CO2, and other aspects of the climate change debate, visit http://www.co2science.org.

References:

Huang, J.-G., Bergeron, Y., Denneler, B., Berninger, F. and Tardiff, J. 2007. Response of forest trees to increased atmospheric CO2. Critical Reviews in Plant Science 26: 265-283.

Koutavas, A. 2013. CO2 fertilization and enhanced drought resistance in Greek firs from Cephalonia Island, Greece. Global Change Biology 19: 529-539.

Morgan, J.A., Pataki, D.E., Korner, C., Clark, H., Del Grosso, S.J., Grunzweig, J.M., Knapp, A.K., Mosier, A.R., Newton, P.C., Kiklaus, P.A., Nippert, J.B., Nowak, R.S., Parton, W.J., Polley, H.W. and Shaw, M.R. 2004. Water relations in grassland
and desert ecosystems exposed to elevated atmospheric CO2. Oecologia 140: 11-25.

Wullschleger, S.D., Tschaplinski, T.J. and Norby, R.J. 2002. Plant water relations at elevated CO2 – implications for water-limited environments. Plant, Cell and Environment 25: 319-331.

Earth Day is a great opportunity for eaters, farmers, and food businesses to make changes in their diets, shopping habits, and production practices that will promote
sustainable, healthy food throughout the year.

Agriculture contributes to almost 30 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. And the environmental damage brought on by the agricultural sector poses significant threats to the industry itself.

But there’s a better way to produce — and eat — food.

The rise of processed foods and a push for high-yield, single-crop farms is leading to not only soil degradation and water scarcity, but also unhealthy consumers.

The time to act is now — and the good news is that breakfast, lunch and dinner are all easy places to start making a difference. Being aware of the environmental costs
that unsustainable farming and eating practices can have on the environment, and making food choices accordingly, can help to fight climate change and protect the environment.

From Uganda and India to the United States, farmers are gaining economic stability and supporting healthy communities through sustainable agriculture practices, As
eaters, we all can do our part to support systems that protect both human health and the planet.

This year Food Tank: The Food Think Tank (http://www.FoodTank.org) is celebrating the ways everyone can protect the planet, on Earth Day, and every day this year.

Here are 13 recommendations from Food Tank for ways to support the future of food, health, and agriculture:

1. Eat more colors
The colors of fruits and vegetables are signs of nutritional content. A richly-colored red tomato has high levels of carotenoids such as lycopene, which the American Cancer Society reports can help prevent cancer, as well as heart disease. The relationship between nutrients and color is also true for other foods. Eggs that have brightly orange-colored yolks are also high in cancer-fighting carotenoids
(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20393997) and are more likely to be produced by healthier chickens.

2. Buy food with less packaging
Discarded packaging makes up around one-third of non-industrial solid waste in industrialized countries, with negative impacts on the climate, and air and water quality (http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/tools/stewardship/products/packaging.htm). The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s analysis of different packaging for tomatoes found that polyethylene terephthalate (PET) clamshell packaging increases tomatoes’ associated carbon emissions by 10 percent. The most effective way to limit the impact of packaging waste is to prevent it. Choosing foods with less packaging can also be better for our waistlines, since highly processed foods that are low in nutrients generally use more packaging than more healthful, less processed options.

3. Choose seasonal produce
Earth Day offers a great opportunity to bring more seasonal fruits and vegetables into diets. Many farmers markets, including the New York City Greenmarkets, offer guides about which products are in season. Locally sourced, seasonal products can also be found at major grocery stores. Another way to get seasonal foods is to sign up for a weekly CSA, which provides a mix of fresh, seasonal produce throughout the year. Other programs, such as Siren Fish Co.’s SeaSA in San Francisco, offer seasonal meats and seafood.

4. Get in touch with agriculture
This time of year, many people are starting to plan vacations. A great way to skip the crowds, save money, and get both children and adults in touch with agriculture
is to book a farm-stay through World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF). WWOOF runs networks in most countries around the world, offering individuals and
families the opportunity to directly support small-scale family farmers.  Participants spend a few days or weeks living with a host family and helping with tasks around the farm in exchange for free food and lodging.

5. Get creative in the kitchen
Shopping at farmers markets, which often have a wide selection of less ordinary produce such as celeriac, sunchokes, or kohlrabi, can prevent “food ruts” by helping
consumers try new foods. When looking for inspiration, many popular recipe blogs, such as smitten kitchen (http://smittenkitchen.com/recipes/), allow users to search
by ingredient, as well as season. Publications such as Diet for a Small Planet (http://smallplanet.org/books/diet-small-planet) and The Boston Globe’s new Sunday
Supper and More (http://beta.boston.com/post/20174519565/globe-e-book-sunday-supper-more) e-cookbook series also offer tips on using leftovers to reduce food waste.

6. Invest in perennial crops
Perennial plants — plants that grow back every year — tend to hold water in soil
more effectively than annuals and help prevent erosion. Their extensive roots also
allow them to better access nutrients and water, reducing the need for artificial
fertilizer. Researchers from the University of Illinois found that perennial
prairie grasses are up to four times as water efficient as row crops such as corn
and wheat (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jgrg.20052/abstract). The Land Institute (http://www.landinstitute.org/) works to breed perennial varieties of corn, wheat, rice, and other annual crops.

7. Reclaim abandoned spaces
As populations continue to expand, especially in cities, reclaiming unused land and buildings for food production can help meet growing demand. One new model is The
Plant, a former meatpacking plant in Chicago that has been converted into an indoor vertical farm. The Plant currently runs an aquaponics farm, growing plants without soil using waste from its manmade tilapia pools. It also offers shared kitchen space for small businesses, and other services.

8. Build local and global food communities
A great way to get involved in food and agriculture issues is with Slow Food International, an organization with more than 1,300 groups around the world called convivia. These groups support healthy, sustainable diets and traditional food cultures. In addition to local initiatives, Slow Food convivia also arrange regional and international events on important food and agriculture issues, such as Slow Food
València’s recent conference on the influence of food in health and disease.

9. DIY
Many Do-It-Yourself (DIY) food projects are easy and fun. Turning old t-shirts into produce bags (http://www.good.is/posts/trim-your-fashion-footprint-by-making-this-diy-shopping-bag) to save plastic, starting seeds in eggshells (http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/how-to-start-seeds-in-eggshell-152795), which can then be crushed for transplanting into the soil, and DIY foods such as homemade oat (http://chocolateandzucchini.com/archives/2011/05/homemade_oat_milk.php) or almond milk (http://www.wishfulchef.com/2011/12/how-to-make-almond-milk/) can all add a creative twist to healthy eating and sustainable agriculture. Plus, they are lots of fun for families to do together.

10. Cook in batches and freeze for later
Planning meals in advance can help reduce stress around cooking. It also helps reduce food waste, which is a big problem in industrialized countries. A great way to reduce waste and make planning easy is to cook large batches of a single meal, such as soups or curries, which can be frozen and reused on short notice later in the week. Preparing large amounts of food at once saves energy during cooking, while freezing helps prevent nutrient loss in fruits and vegetables. For those days when there is more time to cook, tools such as Love Food Hate Waste menu planner shopping
list (http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.nsw.gov.au/resources/menu-planner.aspx) can help organize grocery trips.

11. Brighten your outlook
At the recent Warwick Economics Summit in February, Warwick University Economics Professor Dr. Andrew Oswald presented his research on health and happiness, focusing on the link between happiness and consumption of fruits and vegetables (http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/knowledge/business/andrewoswald/). His team of researchers found that eating more fruits and vegetables directly improves a person’s mental well-being, separate from other variables such as income level and how much meat a person ate. This research is supported by a similar study from the Harvard School of Public Health (http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org/content/75/1/2.abstract?sid=fc6137c5-e497-4f55-b9a2-f211ac8fbe7a), which found a link between patients’ blood-level of carotenoids, compounds commonly found in colorful fruits and vegetables, and their feelings of optimism.

12. Use crop rotation
Crop rotation is an important way to preserve soil nutrients, prevent erosion, and protect against crop diseases and pests. In the central Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, agronomists at Agronorte have developed new varieties of rice and dry beans that are well suited to the region’s tropical climate. By incorporating rice and beans into their yearly harvests, local soybean farmers can reduce the spread of soybean rust and nematodes, two of the biggest threats to their crops. The system also improves soil quality and provides jobs at times when soy and corn are not being harvested.

13. Embrace conviviality around the table
Talking and laughing while sharing food is a uniquely human experience.  Conviviality, joyful and friendly interaction, is found at markets and around the dinner table, and it supports healthy relationships and healthy bodies. The Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition considers convivial food culture one of the most critical aspects of food and agriculture, alongside health, hunger alleviation, and sustainable development. Researchers from Cornell University and the University of Minnesota agree, reporting that the benefits of family dinners on children’s mental health and achievement levels depend on engagement with their parents at these meals (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2012.00973.x/abstract).

Standing up for the future of people and the planet is important on Earth Day and every day. This week is a great chance to work toward making 2013 a year for sustainable food and agriculture!

“As each generation becomes a little further removed from the farm or
ranch, the general knowledge and awareness of where our food comes from
continues to slide,” said Sarah Wray, with the International FarmOn
Foundation. “It has never been more critical for farmers to tell the story
of agriculture.”

Everybody should know the hands that feed them. As such, the International FarmOn Foundation has called on young farmers to engage directly with consumers, relaying their own farming stories and reality through the Farm Voices project. On April 22, Earth Day, the organization is inviting farmers and consumers to connect through the power of social media as farmers around the world post a photo and a thought to Facebook, Instagram and/or Twitter about their experience as a farmer, attaching the hashtag #FARMVOICES.

“Since we launched Farm Voices in February, the movement has gained
traction around the world, hitting 23 different countries to date,” noted
Wray. “We have come to understand that farmers across the planet,
regardless of country, race or creed, aren’t so different from one another.
All seem to share similar joys when it comes to farming: a love of the
land, of the animals, of the hands-on, hard work it takes to feed the
world. At the same time, many are searching for ways to become more
sustainable and profitable while still producing food of the highest
quality.”

Utilizing the power of social media means that farmers now have the
opportunity to effectively and powerfully speak for their own industry,
allowing consumers to learn from the people who truly produce their food.
The Farm Voices movement has the potential to connect farmers and consumers like never before, with young farmers mobilized to lead change within the industry while creating awareness and understanding with consumers.

“Farmers are amazing stewards of the land, we take pride in our operations and the handling of our livestock, treating them with the utmost respect and care,” noted Wray. “It’s so important that our customers understand that and are able to not only get a glimpse into our farming reality, but also ask questions to help create understanding.”

For more information about the Farm Voices movement and how you can become involved, visit http://www.farmon.com/themovement or follow the link to this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TsQs40EoIk

By Robert McGarvey and Mark Anielski, Co-founders and partners, Genuine Wealth

The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) is more than a business; it’s an icon, the very symbol of Canadian prudence and sound management. How in the heck did they get themselves in such a dither over ‘temporary’ foreign workers stealing the jobs of Canadians?

CEO Gordon Nixon was clearly caught unaware by the violent public backlash on Monday. He quickly leapt to the defensive, doing damage control on the CBC Tuesday morning: “the issue,” he proclaimed, “has been overblown and doesn’t reflect the Bank’s policy.” And the public might have believed him had he not then suggested that: “the bank doesn’t get involved in the hiring practices of the companies it hires.”

Truth be told, RBC was simply doing what every large company is doing nowadays, taking advantages of cost savings from ‘globalization’. Many organizations these days are lowering operating costs by outsourcing software development, customer relationship management and basic accounting functions to lower cost service providers in India and other parts of Asia.

What’s wrong with this story? Plenty. There has been a sea change in public opinion on the issue of corporate social responsibility. Public anger and anxiety over jobs in Canada are slamming headlong into the established ‘rules of business’, which, to put it politely, are not overly concerned about sustaining the well-being of middle-class households with higher salaries than in India or China – quite the opposite.

Modern management thinking is strongly informed by the numbers that appear on the company’s Profit and Loss statement. Unfortunately, on this set of financials employees appear as a cost centre; reducing these costs is considered ‘good’ management. But these numbers don’t tell the whole story, in fact, an over focus on the flow side of the business leaves senior management blind to many important relationship-based assets, particularly the well-being returns of their ‘human capital’ assets and their social ‘license to lead’.

If RBC management and its investors were to shift their attention from the traditional financial profitability (ROI) to a genuine balance sheet and a focus on well-being returns on its most valuable and strategic assets, it’s human assets and social assets (i.e. strong relationships), a different picture of success would emerge.

From this new perspective of well-being, employees are not a cost centre, but a source of genuine value. Through a different lens of optimizing enterprise well-being of its employees and customers, RBC could become a model for how financial institutions in Canada and internationally could operate differently in support of a new economic paradigm based on well-being and genuine happiness.

Understanding how RBC’s work force delivers true value and managing the relationship with employees and customers to advance a flourishing enterprise requires asking an entirely different set of questions of management and the role of financial institutions in this new economy of well-being. More importantly, these questions generate an entirely different set of answers. They might just save this venerable institution from disaster, and help revitalize a lagging global financial sector that has seen public trust badly degraded.

The public outrage with RBC’s behaviour could well be the ‘straw that breaks the camel’s back.’ It could also be an opportunity to RBC to reinvent itself as financial institution that will put well-being returns on investment of its employees and customers ahead of financial efficiency alone.

The Royal Bank of Canada needs to do more than be cash flow prudent; it must set an example through its behaviour, demonstrating that it cares about the well-being of its employees, their families, its customer relations and the nation which has granted it a coveted banking Charter. The normal ‘rules of business’ might have been enough a few years ago, today the security of RBC’s License-to-Lead is threatened. Securing it means developing far more insight into rapidly changing Canadian values and a clearer focus on the intangible relational assets that underpin its special place in Canadian life.

Robert McGarvey and Mark Anielskiare co-founders and partners in Genuine Wealth, a Canadian enterprise whose mission is to help businesses, communities and nations mature into flourishing economies and enterprises of well-being.

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In today’s society, the word “sustainable” has become practically meaningless, with most sustainable products just a step less bad than conventional alternatives. Because of the power of “sustainababble,” the world has largely ignored the rich spectrum of political, cultural, and technological changes that would set us on the path to a truly sustainable future. Although the science of sustainability is clearer than ever, we still face the question of whether transforming our society into one guided by sustainability is even possible.

This new volume of State of the World 2013 — which features contributions from experts at the Worldwatch Institute (www.worldwatch.org) as well as from environmental thought leader David Orr; freshwater expert Sandra Postel, ecological economics pioneer Herman Daly, The Story of Stuff author Annie Leonard, science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson,and others — sets out to answer the question, Is Sustainability Still Possible?

In the book, these voices strive to define clear sustainability metrics and examine various policies and perspectives, including geoengineering, cultural engineering, corporate transformation, and energy solutions that could put the world on a path to prosperity without diminishing the well-being of future generations. They then go on to explore ways that governments and communities might cope with the likely consequences of failing to make those necessary changes before reaching planetary tipping points.

While the increasingly popular use of the term “sustainable” reflects a greater public awareness of the environmental predicament we face, the reality is that the actions taken to confront this problem are still far from ideal. Instead of throwing a loose term around haphazardly, sustainability needs to be defined and quantified as a metric so any progress can be measured.

“Simply doing ‘better’ environmentally will not stop the unraveling of ecological relationships that we depend on for food and health,” says Worldwatch President Robert Engelman. “Vastly larger changes are needed than we have seen so far. It is essential that we take stock, soberly and in scientifically measureable ways, of where we are headed. The information detailed in State of the World 2013 does that.”

Development and economic growth have long been tied to increases in greenhouse gas emissions and natural resource use. In the book, the authors discuss the urgency of reconciling economic and population growth within the tenets of sustainability in order to facilitate less, rather than more, harm to our planet. “Clearly, trouble is coming—-but there are better responses to it than stockpiling canned goods and weaponry,” says State of the World 2013 co-director Tom Prugh.

“In view of humanity’s failures of foresight and political will to address the array of sustainability problems ahead, we asked some notable thinkers to ponder what we might do to make the best of it.”

State of the World 2013 is divided into three sections that address how the term “sustainability” should be measured, how we can attain it, and how we can prepare for the possibility of falling short. In The Sustainability Metric, authors offer ways to track global progress to sustainable living. In Getting to True Sustainability, chapters examine policies and perspectives that could build a truly sustainable society if implemented. And in Open in Case of Emergency authors tackle whether and how to prepare for a disruptive global environmental transition that looks increasingly likely.

“Environmentalism, first and foremost, continues to be a game of defense—-working to reduce overall carbon emissions, chemical releases, and forest loss—-rather than a battle to transform the dominant growth-centric economic and cultural paradigm into an ecocentric one that respects planetary boundaries,” says Worldwatch Senior Fellow and State of the World 2013 co-director, Erik Assadourian. “The environmental movement will require a dramatic reboot if it is going to reverse Earth’s rapid transformation and help create a truly sustainable future.”

The State of the World 2013 project’s findings are being disseminated to a wide range of stakeholders, including government ministries, community networks, business leaders, and the nongovernmental environmental and development communities. For more information on the project, visit http://www.sustainabilitypossible.org

Outside federal Member of Parliament constituency offices, government and corporate offices in 12 communities in Ontario, and 11 locations in other provinces.

Rallies in Ontario: Belleville, Goderich, Guelph, Hawkesbury, Kingston, Kitchener-Waterloo, London, Orangeville, Ottawa, Owen Sound, Stratford, Toronto.

Rallies in other provinces: Wolfville NS, Montreal PQ, Quebec City PQ, Brandon MB, North Battleford SK, Camrose AB, Calgary AB, Edmonton AB, Duncan BC, Nelson BC, Vernon BC.

When:

Tuesday April 9, 2013, 12 noon to 1 pm.

Who and What:

Public protest rallies with farmers and consumers to stop the introduction of genetically modified (GM) alfalfa on the Day of Action April 9th, called for by the National Farmers Union-Ontario, and supported by the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network.

Why:

The company Forage Genetics International has applied Monsanto’s genetically modified (GM) herbicide tolerant Roundup Ready technology to alfalfa. Canada approved GM alfalfa for health and environmental release in 2005, but there is one more step before it can be commercially released in Canada: variety registration from the Canadian Food and Inspection Agency. This registration and commercial release could happen as early as this spring!

Alfalfa is used to help produce many of the foods we eat! Alfalfa (commonly harvested as hay) is a high-protein feed for animals like dairy cows, beef cattle, sheep, poultry and pigs. It’s also used to build nutrients and organic matter in the soil, making it particularly important for organic farming. Farmers agree that GM alfalfa is not needed or wanted but farmers are never consulted before GM crops are introduced.

Alfalfa is a perennial plant that is insect pollinated, therefore, if GM alfalfa is commercially released, GM alfalfa will inevitably contaminate non-GM and organic alfalfa. This GM contamination will threaten the livelihoods of family farmers in Ontario and across Canada. The seed industry says they will focus on Eastern Canada but if GM alfalfa is released, it will only be a matter of time before alfalfa across Canada is contaminated, and sensitive export and organic markets are lost.

More Information:

For information on the Day of Action: http://www.cban.ca/april9

For more information on GM Alfalfa: http://www.cban.ca/alfalfa

Other inquiries: Lucy Sharratt, Coordinator, Canadian Biotechnology Action Network: 613 241 2267 ext 25 coordinator@cban.ca

Ann Slater, NFU-O representative on the Day of Action Coordinating Committee: 519-349-2448 aslater@quadro.net