FEFAC and ITC are very pleased with the initial response of soy value chain partners who readily took up the invitation to submit their programmes to the customised benchmarking system for responsible soy programmes. More than a dozen responsible soy programme owners from producer organisations, traders, FEFAC members and other multistakeholder organisations enquired about the new benchmarking facility.
To the great satisfaction of FEFAC and ITC, 8 of these programmes have successfully met the criteria of the initial benchmarking review against the requirements laid down in the FEFAC Soy Sourcing Guidelines:
1. Soy Producer Organisations: AAPRESID-AC (Argentina)
2. Traders & Processors: ADM Responsible Soybean Standard, Cargill Triple-S, Cefetra CRS 3.1
3. FEFAC members: AIC FEMAS (Responsible Sourcing Module) (UK), BEMEFA (Belgian Compound Industry Feed Association)
4. Other organisations: ISCC EU & ISCC PLUS, RTRS
Angela Booth, Chairperson of the FEFAC Sustainability Committee: “We are very pleased with this result. Several of the above mentioned programme owners have put significant effort into aligning their schemes with the requirements of the benchmarking review. It is now possible for interested market partners to start sourcing in line with the FEFAC Soy Sourcing guidelines’’.
FEFAC and ITC strongly encourage further submissions by other programme owners which would allow interested EU feed associations and member companies to make further progress towards the mainstream market transition for the supply of responsibly produced soy to the EU feed sector. FEFAC will continue with outreach activities to promote the Soy Sourcing Guidelines to key supply groups as well as downstream customers in the EU value chain for livestock products.
To build on the transparency and robustness of the process, the FEFAC Soy Sourcing Guidelines, the online ITC benchmark tool including a guidance document about the benchmark process and the approved programmes, can be found on www.standardsmap.org/fefac.