Companies promote sustainable agriculture program
THE promotion of Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI) by leading food and beverage companies continues to bear fruits as more companies have adopted it in their production processes.
In a recent follow-up meeting of last year’s First SAI Platform-Philippine Convention organized by Nestle Philippines, Inc. (NPI), officials of Delfi Foods Inc., Golden Arches Development Corp., Unilever Phils., and Universal Robina Corp. informed the group that they are already implementing SAI-related programs.
Nestle Philippines, Inc. has its Nestle Experimental and Demonstration Farm, Unilever its Clean Water campaign, and Coca-Cola its PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate, a recyclablematerial) bottle program, among others.
While these programs have already been put in place, the participants agreed that more action need to be done.
SAI is a groundbreaking platform created by food industry giants Nestle, Danone and Unilever to actively support and promote sustainable agriculture.
With this, they agreed to implement an awareness program among their employees and partner companies. This includes a compilation of the best practices and success stories of each of the participating companies that will be handed out to other companies.
In the meantime, the group plans to enlist more companies, at least 15 core members, which can adopt SAI objectives and recommended strategy.
Three more companies supportive of SAI’s cause were presented to the Department of Agriculture in their recent meeting last month.
SAI encompasses social, environmental and economic dimensions which can have a tremendous impact on the people’s daily lives.
The SAI platform seeks to improve the quality, safety and nutritional value of agricultural products through concrete ways of increasing the produce’s nutritional content and safeness arising from the farm, including cutting the risks of harmful residues. It also addresses relevant issues such as improving the farmers’ productivity through attractive farming livelihood programs, land and soil conservation, water conservation, power conservation.
Towards a SAI Philippines. Participants of the second SAI meeting pose for posterity. From right to left: Jules del Pilar of Nestle, Jammuf Khandige of Delfi Foods, Pamela Forshage of URC, Joel Lumagbas of Nestle, Nimfa Pangan of URC, Laura Nabua of Golden Arches, Bruno Olierhoek of Nestle, and public relations executive Chris Cahilig.
