Farm environmental management systems context

Chapter one introduced efforts to develop farm scale systems for supporting, measuring and reporting on environmental sustainability as an important impetus for this study. This context is described in more detail in the following pages.

Environmental management systems or voluntary environmental management arrangements (VEMAs) are defined by Mech and Young (2001:2) as

... a diverse range of arrangements in which firms and in some cases other organisational structures, may voluntarily choose to participate for the purposes of enhancing environmental management. VEMA is an umbrella term denoting many very different arrangements and production protocols that may (or may not) be part of environmental certification or labelling scheme.

The use of a formalised auditable procedure to formulate and monitor farming systems that are more benign for the environment has been used by a variety of farming, government and non- government organisations around the world. The aspect of EMS that is attracting many sustainable land management focused organisations is the promise of a system that combines commercial operations and on farm environmental management, possibly to the benefit of both.

An EMS for Australian agriculture is likely to involve self-assessment to gauge current environmental performance, a list of best management practices/principles to reduce

environmental impacts, indicators and monitoring tools to measure improved performance and potentially, a third-party audit to independently verify improved performance (Patterson 2001). Drivers for undertaking EMS included; potentially increased access to markets, improved sustainability, increased land valuation and reduced liability (ibid).

Hundreds of farms around Australia have been assisted to implement Environmental Management Systems or abbreviated forms of EMS through the EMS National Pilot and EMS Pathways Programs (URS 2005) and the many other government, NGO and industry programs. A stocktake of EMS in Victoria found over 1000 farmers had 32 different approaches to EMS (per.comm. Anna Ridley, 2006).

Despite this, uptake represents only a small proportion of farmers across the country. The relative lack of interest in implementing EMS was shown by the poor uptake of the means tested $3,000 Commonwealth rebate from 2003-2006 which required farmers to undertake a basic EMS. Using this as an indicator of interest is problematic because primary producers in the income bracket above $35,000 per annum were excluded, and there were also issues in the way the program was delivered. Based on the successful Canadian Ontario Environmental Farm Plan scheme which was not means tested, the Australian scheme has since been abandoned. .

In attempting to understand better the potential supply chain related drivers of EMS, the integration of farm Environmental Management Systems into supply chain approaches has received considerable research interest in the last few years. This was largely in response to the spike in the Commonwealth investment in EMS from 2003 to 2006 through the funding of pilot programs for training land managers to undertake a farm EMS across Australia.

Investigations into the likely flows beyond the farm gate that can capitalise on EMS efforts were undertaken by a number of the Australian EMS pilot projects exploring methods of getting certified EMS products to the market. Supply chain studies associated with these efforts included the Queensland Eco-range project (MacNamara & Pahl 2003, Pahl et al. 2006), the Gippsland Beef Enviro-Meat program (Roberts 2004), the Tasmanian King Island EMS project (Brand DNA 2005) and the Sugar Link project (Woodhead et al. 2006). In addition, research into the role of EMS and environmental certification in supply chain dynamics has included the Western Australian government commissioned Buying Green report (Backshal 2000, Cary et al. 2004).

The national EMS framework developed by the Commonwealth Department of Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries, emphasises the need to consider the vertical integration of EMS, suggesting that ‘…for maximum credibility, all levels in the supply chain should be certified, not just the farm’ (EMS Working Group 2001). The EMS Working Group considers the integration of EMS with catchment and regulatory processes and suggests that EMS may be driven by regional coalitions or branding opportunities (ibid). They consider a potential mix of regulations and NRM and regional coalitions to communicate farm sustainability values, shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Market and supply chain features of EMS for agriculture

Consumer Retailer Wholesaler Producer Processor International Domestic Regulations Regional Coalitions Resource owner or supplier Regulations Catchment Management Plans

This national framework for EMS stated a range of objectives including improved practices on farm and better accounting of impacts of production at regional scales. Some of these objectives were realised in the short term through the range of programs that were established, many of which have since disbanded.

Unlike its Canadian counterpart, the Ontario Environmental Farm Plan Program, which has been running for fifteen years and has engaged around 30,000 farmers (OMAFRA 2008), the Australian program represented a flurry of activity in which dozens of systems were designed and implemented, but were left with an uncertain future. The question remains as to the future for Environmental Management Systems in Australia.

2.5.1 Local attitudes to environmental assurance

As mentioned in the introduction, the development of an environmental assurance framework for the Blackwood forms an important background for this study. The Blackwood BestFarms system was developed by the Blackwood Basin Group in 2003 with the aim to develop and trial an Environmental Management System framework that could support development of EMS on farms. Since BestFarms training of farmers commenced in March 2004, over 200 farms in the South West region have developed an EMS through the program (per.comm Kirsten Skraha, BestFarms project coordinator, July 2008). Land managers from a further 92 farms in New South Wales have also been trained in the BestFarms system (ibid). The program is supported by issue based workshops, seminars, newsletters and field days as well as site visits and a range of other support mechanisms. Farms can receive BestFarms ‘certification’ and have this reviewed annually if they wish.

In the lead up to this development of this system, efforts were made the Blackwood Basin Group to understand the catchment community’s perceptions of environmental assurance. A landholder survey, which covered aspects of environmental certification of agricultural products amongst other natural resource management issues, was undertaken in the Blackwood in December 2001. This queried the willingness of both farmers and non-farmers to pay more for environmentally certified products. Nearly half the respondents said they were willing to pay more for environmentally certified produce (BBG 2001).

An interesting finding was that whereas 40% of farmers were not willing to pay more for environmentally accredited produce, only 18% of non-farmers were not prepared to pay more for environmentally certified foods (ibid). As the main consumer of agricultural products, the latter finding has positive implications for marketing sustainable products.

The results suggested willingness to reward farmers who achieve sustainable production objectives but for any system of environmental certification to win community confidence, the respondents showed that it must first address community concerns. Respondents felt that regulation and monitoring of environmental certification would need to be stringent and “above board” to ensure credibility (BBG 2001).

The survey asked about the degree to which quality assurance systems are in place. The concept and operation of quality assurance systems are already quite well understood in the Blackwood, with a quarter of farm respondents having some kind of quality assurance system on their farm (ibid) A further 36% of landholders would like to implement some sort of quality assurance system (ibid).

When farmers were asked if they wanted to implement an Environmental Management System, 21% replied in the affirmative (BBG 2001). Most farmers needed more information on EMS before making decisions. Respondents were invited to comment on the concept of differentiating food and fibre products based on sustainability. Respondant comments from both farming and urban parts of the catchment included the following (BBG 2001):

Some people can only afford cheap food.

Increase the price and the ‘bigboys’ will increase imports. It should be a commitment of producers to shift to this product. Not practical, segregation costs too high.

I would only pay more if they are sustainable in terms of productivity and profitability for the farmer.

This would be impossible to work out and to monitor.

Environmentally accredited produce could be advertised as such to gain consumer support and thus place pressure on the producers to use this method.

I don't know of any produce that is produced in a more environmentally friendly way. I would only pay more if the producer received extra dollars.

I would not put any trust in any self-regulated group to be honourable in their day-to- day activities when profit is involved.

The cynic in me says the other players in the food processing industry would manipulate the system for profit.

I would pay more based on health/ hygiene benefits for self and environment. Doubt our ability to certify - tends to be a lawyer solution rather than real!

I would like to know more about how the accreditation system would operate (very complex).

The term "environmentally certified" is too loose and hard to prove as credible.

The catchment survey provided a positive impetus for the development of the BestFarms EMS system. However the results also indicated that more empirical evidence would be needed to truly assess both the catchment community perspective and the wider community perspective of the role of farm environmental management and certification systems. This, as mentioned previously provided the key impetus for this PhD study.