emissions; carbon absorbed by soil and natural vegetation would be released and this could be accompanied by increased losses of nitrate into rivers and aquifers.
Longer term, however, there is potential to produce more food on a smaller area. Our report for Professor Beddington, shows that there are theoretical opportunities to increase crop productivity per hectare, so to grow more food with more benign environmental impacts.
Based on advances in husbandry, including more and better irrigation, better machinery and automation, genetic innovation including Genetic Manipulation, better land use and integrating measures against disease, pests and weeds, it could be possible to improve yields for both wheat and oilseed rape by about 70% per cent. Obviously, theoretical yields will always be higher than actual yields; nevertheless, enough is known about yield-forming processes to suggest that such increases are attainable.
These are promising conclusions for a deeply worrying problem – large production gains made without compromising the environment. At this stage, though, the opportunities remain theoretical. Time, large government and industry investment and a supportive public will be required to turn the theory into reality.
Engaging the ‘team’ Alongside strategic investment and public support, a team effort is required by a large number of businesses world-wide, to achieve greater food supply for a greater population, in a sustainable way. This team includes food producers and their suppliers of raw materials, transport networks, food processors, and retailers.
Team members need to be engaged by demonstrating potential benefits to their businesses, arising through increased production, increased sustainability, and lower costs per unit of product.
Good businesses manage the environmental impact of their operations. But this gets more difficult when impacts of raw materials are included. Food materials are produced on the land and the close interaction between land management and the wider environment adds complexity.
Consumers make buying decisions based on many factors, especially price and quality, and sometimes also sustainability, or avoidance of impacts that interest the individual consumer. Retailers are responding to these commercial pressures and, together with government and agriculture-industry pressures for decreased carbon emissions, these pressures are influencing supply chains.
How can manufacturers and retailers measure, monitor and reduce water use, carbon emissions and other
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impacts (e.g. biodiversity loss) of their raw materials, which are largely produced by suppliers outside their immediate control?
Supplier engagement programmes must genuinely engage farmers. Buyers can work closely with their suppliers to establish guiding principals to reduce a finished product’s environmental footprint, but they must understand production processes to allow establishment of best practices, and they must show the benefits for suppliers’ businesses.
Supplier engagement programmes help suppliers to anticipate necessary changes ahead of their competition, protecting and enhancing their markets. Manufacturers and retailers are able to demonstrably reduce environmental impacts of products, with associated marketing and other business benefits. They can also lower reputational risk associated with their production practices.
Forward-thinking suppliers and retailers are attaching increased importance to this type of activity and the trend is set to grow, helping the present generation to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
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