The FAO project on responsible tropical fruits value chain engages with businesses, farmer organizations and actors in global avocado and pineapple value chains, particularly those involved in export markets, with the aim of fostering responsible business practices to enhance the sustainability and resilience of their businesses.
Studies and interactive sessions through surveys and peer-learning workshops have been conducted with the actors focusing on areas such as risk management and due diligence, climate change adaptation, value chain enhancements and social-economic responsibilities. Feedback from these discussions and interactions has been essential to develop the guide: Responsible business conduct (RBC) in the pineapple industry: a guide for producers and exporters (forthcoming). The guide aims to function as a tool for businesses and producers in tropical fruits value chains to integrate RBC practices in their operations, by setting up or improving risk management systems and introducing operational adjustments. This will ultimately lead to enhanced value chain sustainability and resilience.
To share and contextualize the findings of the RBC guide for Asia and the Pacific, FAO in collaboration with the International Tropical Fruits Network (TFNet) organized an online workshop on ‘Responsible Business Conduct (RBC) and Risk Management of Pineapple Value Chains in Asia and the Pacific on 25 April 2024.
The aim of this workshop was to:
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- Provide a background of FAO’s work on (Responsible Business Conduct) RBC and why this is important to pineapple value chains.
- Share and contextualize information that have been sourced from global industry actors pertaining to RBC practices to enhance the sustainability and resilience of pineapple value chains.
- Elicit feedback from stakeholders on issues and challenges in the various aspects of pineapple value chains in the Asian and Pacific region, to chart future directions for the project.
Seventeen (17) participants from FAO market and trade division and pineapple value chain actors, regulators and researchers from government agencies, research institutions and universities from the Asia Pacific region, participated in the workshop.
The program involved presentations from FAO who introduced responsible business conduct and its importance to pineapple production and businesses and a presentation on how producers and businesses can identify risks with potential negative impact, including tools and guidance to address some of the risks. Following this a representative from an Indonesian pineapple plantation, GGP presented on addressing environmental risks through precision agriculture in a regenerative pineapple system.
Through the presentations, Q and A and discussion sessions, key takeaways of the workshop were:
- Responsible Business Conduct (RBC) is important for producers in order to abide by the regulatory and compliance measures for due diligence compliance required by importing markets, and that voluntary certifications may not be enough with new compliance requirements of such markets.
- The categories of risks are environmental risks such as adapting to climate change and measuring carbon and water footprint, social risks which includes occupational hazards and health standards and cross cutting risks which includes indigenous and local community rights and a guide on complaints mechanism. Risk related to violations of human rights are most important.
- The risk assessment process involve identification and prioritizing the three most important social and environmental risks and mapping the supply chain to identify and assess risks at each level of operations including involvement of the most vulnerable group.
- While responsible business conduct in areas of climate change adaptation, risk management and due diligence, value chain enhancements and socio-economic responsibilities are relatively easier for big companies to adopt, it may need more effort for smallholders to adopt such practices.
- Certifications such as global gap, rainforest alliance and others are an important component for better market access and expansion. They also provide a competitive edge against those who are not compliant.
- Valorization or farm waste or zero waste management are easier implemented in bigger more efficient plantations to improve soil and growing conditions and are more environmentally friendly.
- Responsible conduct to improve socio economic development may be more challenging as it requires a reliable measure to gauge its compliance level.
The full report of the workshop is also available for download in FAO’s website.