SAI Platform Issues New Report Promoting Water Stewardship at Farm and Catchment Level
4th January 2016
In its new publication “Water Stewardship in Sustainable Agriculture – Farm and Catchment Level Assessment”, SAI Platform provides practical guidance on the steps required for farm level water stewardship in a catchment context, thereby complementing a previous publication “Water Stewardship in Sustainable Agriculture – Beyond the Farm Towards a Catchment Approach”.
This resource will be useful for non-expert business leaders and managers who recognize the need for farm level water stewardship – whether at their own farms or those of their suppliers.
The aim is to empower and enable key decision makers to:
– understand the scope and steps involved in farm level water stewardship.
– understand where specialist experts are required.
– make the right practical and investment choices.
– be better equipped to support CSR reporting on water related issues.
– be better informed for communication on water stewardship.
The current document addresses the three practical key steps on the road to farm level water stewardship.
These are:
1. Developing Knowledge: a prerequisite to reliable risk assessment.
2. Identifying Risks at two levels: (i) risks to the farm, and (ii) risks from the farm to others and the natural environment.
3. Taking Action: to address and mitigate risks.
As Peter-Erik Ywema, SAI Platform’s General Manager puts it: “This document is a must-read. Water management is a key issue for all food chain stakeholders wanting to ensure the sustainability of their business. We increasingly see water-stressed regions around the world struggling to meet demand for agricultural produce. This report provides a much-needed resource to guide decision-making for on-farm actions, as part of watershed approaches.”
For any question or comment, please contact Emeline Fellus.
Water is, and will remain a key priority for SAI Platform. We actively promote water saving and water management as part of our principles and practices for sustainable agriculture and in the Farm Sustainability Assessment. In addition, we work with the Sustainable Food Lab on a number of local watershed collaboration projects and we coordinate a multi-stakeholder sustainable water management project in Doñana in Spain, one of the most important strawberry production regions in the world.
