Sustainable farming
Within Sustainable farming:
Carbon footprint
Because of meat’s high nutritional value, within the consumption of food of animal origin, pork and poultry originating from the Netherlands and Germany is a climate-friendly way to meet consumer’s protein needs. This meat has a similar CO2 footprint to tofu (see figure), although its nutritional value for humans is much higher. With regard to beef production, methane emissions from rumination and manure cause substantial greenhouse gas emissions. Vion mainly slaughters dairy cattle and the offspring of dairy cattle which are essentially by-products of dairy production, making the CO2 footprint substantially lower than that of beef from pure meat breeds. In 2021, Vion calculated the footprint of meat from 10 Dutch dairy farmers. Results show that these Dutch cattle farmers – as with Dutch pig farmers – are in the top 10% of dairy farmers worldwide when it comes to carbon footprint sustainability. Our commitment is to put onto the market food items with a lower carbon footprint than today’s items and to provide information to customers and consumers on the footprints of the products they buy. To achieve this, we are developing a CO2 label for our products based on the actual data from the supply chain. Our objective is to have the first products with CO2 labels on shelves in 2022. We expanded the pool of calculated GHG emissions to 100 farms. The 2022 objective is to calculate the emissions for all of the approximately 160 Good Farming Star farms. In general, we advocate the use of soy certified by Round Table Responsible Soy (RTRS). The RTRS certification includes strict requirements on the preservation of natural forests and other natural resources. More specifically, all pigs raised under our Good Farming Star programme are fed with RTRS certified soy. Furthermore, Vion is working together with dedicated partners to develop the infrastructure that assures the use of soy from fields that were not associated with deforestation (Identity Preserved soy).
Overall, the environmental footprint of pork is lower than that of beef, as ruminants emit more greenhouse gasses, including methane
Biodiversity
Within dairy farming, there is growing attention on improving biodiversity. Many Dutch dairy cattle farmers are using the biodiversity monitor – a tool which monitors positive and negative impact on biodiversity. Based on this assessment, a location-specific biodiversity plan has been implemented on farms.
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Determining the best method of calculating the carbon footprint of meat
Vion is committed to a calculation methodology developed by Wageningen University. The practical implementation of food print calculations requires raw data from supply chain partners such as farms and feed suppliers through a robust and reliable data infrastructure. In 2021, we implemented the methodology for pork as an automated calculation system and received data from 45 farms.
Continuous improvement in sustainability at our organic pig farms
All our organic pig farmers with De Groene Weg are EKO-certified and use the EKO-code as a scoring instrument on twelve topics, including energy, soil, manure, biodiversity and circularity. Each supplier is expected to set at least two objectives every year, resulting in a higher score in the next year. This approach ensures the continuous improvement of sustainability in the organic pork supply chain of De Groene Weg.
All our organic pig farmers with De Groene Weg are EKO-certified
Dialogue with stakeholders
Together with industry partners, Vion discusses possible solutions to a variety of environmental topics. For example, Vion was a partner in the workgroup initiated by the Dutch government on the reporting of carbon footprints for food in the Netherlands. The output of the workgroup was a project team which will take the lead when it comes to changes in favour of sustainable farming.
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Clarification of the results
The results shown above are based on the data of 15 pork farms and 10 dairy farms. Vion did not achieve its 2021 goal of calculating GHG emissions for 160 farmers. This was because data from the farms were not yet fully disclosed by the end of 2021. The relevant data were received in Q1 of 2022 and calculations are ongoing at the time this report is being published. In 2022, we aim to calculate the emissions of 160 Good Farming Star pig farms plus 40 cattle farms.