Consumers in this country have increasingly been discussing sustainable production practices when it comes to the food industry. In a proactive approach, the food industry has joined forces with 126 different participants to establish the National Index on Agri-Food Performance. This Index considers many different factors of how food is grown to how it is being sold. The intent behind this is to benchmark where Canada’s food system is and where it is going.
The National Index on Agri-Food Performance identified four key areas of focus. Twenty indicators and over one hundred metrics will be used to assess the four areas of environment, food integrity (including food safety), societal well-being and economic sustainability. By identifying these metrics, the Index looks to inspire, encourage, and increase reporting across the sector, thereby improving alignment. Demonstrating the current state of sustainability – which reflects producers’ and companies’ efforts to continuously improve – and showing the progress being made to more sustainable is a shared objective1.
The Index is designed with the Canadian agriculture and food context in mind. Global indices, while covering many similar sustainability themes – environment, work force and labour, etc. – often need to be tailored to meet a country’s respective situation. Some global indices and goals are very specific to emerging and developing countries’ food systems. The Canadian Index captures the geographic and agriculture realities and nuances that Canada faces while applying methodologies that are nationally relevant. While both the Index and other global indices rely on surveys and practices as proxies for evidence, the intent of the Canadian initiative is to step-up the quality of domestically available metrics by focusing on science- and outcomes-based measures1.
Farm & Food Care Saskatchewan is one of the organizations involved with this coalition. The shared ownership of the Index allows for each individual group to make suggestions on the benchmarking metrics and improvements and changes. We know that consumers are increasingly asking for sustainably sourced food and this is one avenue in which we hope to show leadership and advance the industry forward.
1 – From the National Index on Agri-Food Performance, https://www.agrifoodindex.ca/.