SUSTAINABILITY THROUGH TRACEABILITY
SPROULE FARMS USES GLOBALG.A.P. CERTIFICATION TO VERIFY SUSTAINABLE PRACTICES TO ACCESS NEW MARKETS.
11/13/2020
Paul Sproule grabs a bag of Frito-Lay potato chips and lays it on its side.
“See this?” asks Sproule, who heads operations for Sproule Farms, Grand Forks, North Dakota, as he points to a code on the bag. “This code tells you what day it was produced, where the potatoes came from, and who the grower was.”
Frito-Lay also tracks farm production practices for the potatoes Sproule Farms raises. “We can tell them where the seed came from, what date we planted the potatoes, what kind of chemicals we used, when we harvested them, and when they went into storage,” says Sproule. “It has complete traceability. If there’s a food recall, they can come back and trace it.”
Sproule sees markets that stress sustainability via traceability coming to other farm products, too.
“I feel this is the direction our culture is going,” says Sproule. “I’d rather be ahead of the curve than behind it. I think it [traceability] validates what you are committed to raising on your farm.”
“Consumers, if everything else is equal, will choose a sustainable option,” says Kiersten Stead, managing partner of DCVC Bio, a firm that invests in early-stage companies including those in agriculture and food.
If consumers don’t perceive that one exists or have proof, they may instead steer toward other options, Stead adds.
“Those sustainable products have to compete with conventional ones,” she says.
GLOBALG.A.P.
Sustainability is a loosey-goosey term that means different things to different entities. One way to measure it is through GLOBALG.A.P.
This program, which originated in Europe, sets voluntary standards for global agricultural products. Its goal is to establish one standard for good agricultural practices (hence the acronym G.A.P.) and reassure customers about the way food is produced.
GLOBALG.A.P. certification entails steps farmers in 135 countries follow to minimize farming’s environmental footprint, such as through optimal use of chemical inputs. GLOBALG.A.P. standards also promote animal welfare and responsible worker health and safety.
“GLOBALG.A.P. is the business standard for sustainable food production,” says Sproule. He figured if Sproule Farms did it on potatoes through 2019, they could do it on the rest of the farm's crops.
Sproule Farms GLOBALG.A.P.-certified its wheat, corn, sugar beets, and edible beans.
Sproule Farms didn’t have to change its farming practices to do so, says Sproule, but it did have to jump through many certification hoops.
“It was a lot of work,” says Sproule. “It changes your farm’s culture and your thought process as to what you’re doing.”
Mollie Ficocello, Paul’s daughter, oversaw the GLOBALG.A.P. certification process for Sproule Farms. “Each year, an independent auditor will come to the farm,” she says.
Initially, Sproule Farms hired a consultant to help with rule compliance, but the Sproule team now is experienced enough to meet alone with the auditor each year to ensure compliance.
“They’ll physically look at every field that we are in,” says Sproule. “They will check for things like making sure we are not farming in a hazardous area, such as near a landfill, where we could have hazardous waste going through our production area.”
GLOBALG.A.P. certification is a form of regulation mandated by consumer demand in some ways. There’s a difference, though, between this program and state and federal regulations, says Ficocello.
“GLOBALG.A.P. is something we chose to do,” she says. “I think that people do get frustrated with regulation, but this is something we’ve been eager to do and be a leader in.”
“It also opens up opportunities for the farm,” adds Sproule’s son-in-law, David Gorder, who works in field operations for Sproule Farms. For example, one South Korean buyer called the farm, searching for GLOBALG.A.P.-certified corn.
GLOBALG.A.P. certification costs money to adopt, with expenses varying by crop and fields.
“It’s just part of things, just like having health insurance,” says Sproule. Still, this is [certification] being driven by large buyers, such as Walmart and Costco, who have said, ‘We want this gold standard.’ ”
“This gives us that gold standard,” says Ficocello.
VALUE OF DATA
Data management is key to measuring sustainability in a traceability program. Sproule Farms, Grand Forks, North Dakota, has used Conservis, a farm management software system, since 2011.
“Using Conservis, we can tell [an end user] everything we have done to raise a product,” says Paul Sproule, who heads operations for Sproule Farms. “We have complete traceability due to Conservis.”
Conservis started in 2008 as a platform for sustainability and carbon trading, says Pat Christie, Conservis founder and executive vice president of sales and marketing.
“The idea with sustainability is doing more with less,” he says. “You can’t improve what you can’t measure. So, if you capture your core business information, you can measure factors like greenhouse gas calculations, water efficiency, and fuel efficiency.
“We try to understand the whole business of the farm,” he adds. “If you think of all the companies who are putting money into [agricultural data] technology, they tend to be selling something beyond technology. They’re selling chemistry, fertilizer, and genetics. They’re building technology to prove or get a competitive advantage for their primary business. We don’t have any of that.”
Instead, Conservis helps farmers manage data and link it to their agronomic practices so they can access new markets linked to sustainability such as carbon credits.
“It was a group of farmers who came to us and said, ‘We need proof of what we are doing to have access to new markets and get a premium for our practices,’ ” says Christie.
This led to use of Conservis by customers like the Sproule family to help establish traceability under GLOBALG.A.P. standards. It also enabled Sproule Farms to better manage farm processes.
“You have a plan at the start of the year, but it can change, depending on the crop year,” says Mike Sproule, Paul’s nephew who manages cropping operations for Sproule Farms. “If you use different inputs like chemicals, Conservis keeps track of that on a daily basis. It also allows you to easily access your records to look at historical agronomic data.”
SUSTAINABLE MARKETS
Commodity markets will continue to be at the heart of corn, soybean, and small grain production for years to come, says Pat Christie, Conservis founder and executive vice president of sales and marketing.
Still, specific sustainable attributes, such as corn produced under an environmentally friendly nitrogen threshold, may garner premiums, he says.
It’s already happening with wheat. Sproule Farms in Grand Forks, North Dakota, grows niche wheats like those low in gluten content for Arcadia Biosciences under the Good Wheat label.
“I just think this is an exciting time for wheat because the United States is seeing a resurgence in specialized niche markets,” says Paul Sproule, who heads operations for Sproule Farms. “We are raising a specialized wheat for people who want specific attributes in their food products. I see that as a growing sector.”
Niche sales may not be secured unless a farmer can prove a crop is grown in a sustainable or specific manner desired by the end user, says Christie.
“I think you’ll see that these traceability efforts are going to become the new cost of doing business, as opposed to access to a premium,” Christie says. “We’re already seeing that with some food companies. If you’re producing soybeans for Unilever’s Hellmann’s mayonnaise, you may not be getting a premium, but you have to do some different management practices to get the business. The notion of supply chains starting to look for proof is very real.