Leveraging the Private Sector to Drive Innovation for Sustainable Agrifood Systems
13 April 2022, Washington, DC – Ahead of the Informal North American Regional Conference (INARC), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Liaison Office for North America hosted a roundtable discussion on 8 April on leveraging the private sector for sustainable agriculture. INARC-7 will convene U.S. and Canadian government officials and FAO from 12 to 14 April to deliberate on their shared priorities for advancing sustainable argifood systems.
Jocelyn Brown Hall, Director of the FAO Liaison Office for North America, launched the discussion highlighting FAO's new private sector strategy, which aims to engage businesses at all levels from the micro to the corporate level. "We view this engagement as critical to achieving Zero Hunger and sustainable food systems," said Brown Hall, who served as the moderator.
"It's so important that we have private sector involved in these spaces because the private sector is on the front line of developing many of the solutions that we need on sustainability," said Robynne Anderson, CEO of Emerging Ag Inc, and coordinator of the Private Sector Mechanism representing agribusinesses at the UN Committee on World Food Security and the UN Food Systems Summit. However, the role the private sector can play is not always clear, and thus she emphasized the need to bridge the gap between global challenges, field experiences and the UN's work, especially as the Ukraine and Russia conflict puts on hold a large amount of the worlds grain and oilseed production.
Giselle Aris, Group Director of Strategic Partnerships at Land O'Lakes Venture37, shared the non-profit's experience in leveraging its affiliation with Land O’Lakes, one of the biggest agricultural cooperatives in the United States. Through the Dairy Nourishes Africa, a long-standing public-private partnership established by Land O'Lakes Venture37, the Global Dairy Platform and Bain and Company, are engaging a wide range of stakeholders to transform the African dairy industry through market mechanisms, as part of the Pathways to Dairy Net Zero to reduce the sectors global climate emissions. Aris explained that "the pre-competitive collaboration, where risk is shared," is key to how the private sector can drive innovation in a transformative way across agrifood systems.
Susan Zimmerman, Global Public Policy Manager at John Deere, one of the world's largest agriculture and forestry equipment manufacturing company, noted that it is important to understand the motivations driving the private sector when it comes to embarking on a pilot project with civil society and governments. "It's less about the aid and more about leveraging the immense expertise that we, as a company, have built up over many years when it comes to agricultural equipment and what works best for our customers," said Zimmerman.
Providing perspectives from civil society, Gregory P. Spira, Head of Gender, Food & Climate Justice Programs at CARE Canada, brought attention to the significant role of women's empowerment plays in attaining sustainability which "encompasses expanding access for women to opportunities in the sector within our food systems and that often means we have to change the way market systems work,'' said Spira. He shared examples of CARE Canada's projects in Honduras integrating smallholder women farmers into coffee values chains. "Partnership is not about CSR it's about advancing core businesses delivering on sustainability commitments, and this should be something that other private sector partners also look towards supporting," added Spira.
Daryl Nearing, Deputy Director for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) and John Tuminaro, Senior Food Security Advisor for the Department of State's Bureau of International Organizations Affairs also joined the discussion during the Q & A session.
Overall, the discussion highlighted the diversity of private sector actors and the importance of engaging a wide range of stakeholders towards a common goal whereby the private sector can leverage its expertise to drive industry-wide change towards more sustainable, resilient, and inclusive agrifood systems that contribute to better livelihoods.
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