News

SAI Platform Recognises Solidaridad’s Self-Assessment Tool for Citrus in Brazil

27th February 2018

BRUSSELS, Belgium. February 27, 2018 – The Solidaridad self-assessment tool for Brazilian citrus growers enables farmers to benchmark their practices against the requirements of SAI Platform’s Farm Sustainability Assessment (FSA) up to Gold Level.

Farmers using Solidaridad’s self-assessment tool can now demonstrate equivalence with SAI Platform’s Farm Sustainability Assessment (FSA) up to Gold Level. SAI Platform carried out a thorough benchmarking process to assess the extent to which the FSA aligns with the self-assessment toolkit developed by Solidaridad to support continuous improvement of Brazilian citrus growers. The results show 100% of the applicable, essential and basic FSA criteria are covered along with 75% of the advanced criteria. This benchmarking supports compatibility and decreases administrative burden on farmers. Orange growers using Solidaridad’s self-assessment tool will be able to assess their performance against several standards by completing a single questionnaire and receiving tailored feedback.

Since 2012, Solidaridad has been working with Riedel, the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative Platform (SAI Platform), AIJN, Firmenich, Citri Company and other local and global partners to improve the sustainability of the orange supply chain in Brazil. During this period, Solidaridad developed a user-friendly self-assessment tool that supports the adoption of best practices, while enabling farmers to benchmark their practices against legal requirements and relevant international sustainability standards. The toolkit specific for citrus farmers now also includes SAI Platform’s Farm Sustainability Assessment criteria.

This tool provides farmers, farmers’ organizations and value chain partners with a set of solutions to identify challenges, plan adjustments and monitor progress over time. Content specific versions (toolkits) have been tested and used by more than 5,000 farmers of sugarcane, soy, livestock, coffee, oil palm, citrus, cocoa, cotton and tea in Latin America (Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, Colombia and Peru) and Africa (Ghana, South Africa). Based on these results, Solidaridad developed a mobile phone application called Farming Solution to foster farmers’ autonomy by providing them with the information they need to set their own path towards better farming in the palm of their hands.

For companies, this approach provides a cost-effective way to reach a large number of producers and support their continuous improvement in the performance required to ensure quality and sustainability of supply. Access to aggregate data enables companies to get an overview of their suppliers’ progress in real-time, identify support needs, set targets and organize support strategies. Companies committed to SAI Platform’s FSA performance levels can use Solidaridad’s support programme to achieve these levels and promote it.