De-risking agricultural supply chains: due diligence on forests

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan (MAFF) is convening a series of webinars on “Halting deforestation: approaches and tools for forest-positive commodity value chains” in September and October of this year.

One of the webinars entitled ‘De-risking agriculture supply chains –including forests in due diligence process’ was held on 22 September. The session aimed to answer the question on how the due diligence process can help de-risk supply chains. It provided an overview of existing guidance for private sector due diligence in agriculture and emerging legislative requirements to ensure responsible business conduct and due diligence in agricultural supply chains.

The line-up of speakers included panelists from FAO’s Forestry Division, the Governments of Brazil, Côte d’Ivoire, Japan, Mexico and the European Commission.

Naoki Hayasaka, Deputy Director of the International Forestry Cooperation Office of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan called for increased cooperation between producer and consumer countries. He noted the commitment of the Japanese Government to continue their collaboration with international organizations such as the FAO towards halting deforestation.

Astrid Agostini, Coordinator of the “Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation in developing countries” (REDD+) Programme explained that, while due diligence is a business driven approach, governments have a key role to play in fostering synergies against deforestation. She told the audience that, as a part of the United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS), a new multi-stakeholder coalition to halt deforestation is being formed. “The private sector will be considered crucial in the alliance’s formation,” she noted.

Hugo-Maria Schally, Head of Unit for Multilateral Environmental Cooperation at the European Commission Directorate-General for the Environment emphasized the EU’s strong commitment to address deforestation and forest degradation globally. He added that a series of existing and new EU legislative initiatives on the enhanced due diligence will enable the EU to achieve this objective. He went on to present the EU Forest Partnerships initiative.

The meeting enabled the sharing of best practices and lessons learned in producer countries to improve due diligence and traceability in the agriculture and forestry sectors.

Presentations of the speakers are available here.
The next session of this webinar series will be held on 20 October. and will discuss ‘Climate finance opportunities to foster forest-positive agriculture’. You can sign up here.