I think that we had a useful series of meetings, including the National Roundtable meeting, the Climate and Nature Positive Production Working Groups, in addition to the board meeting and strategy session itself.
We also had an excellent session in which we heard from members of the European roundtable, as well as a panel discussion on communications.
Following our meetings, we took a field trip on Friday, which included visits to an Italian leather tannery, a biogas plant and a feedlot, all of which were interesting and quite different for those used to other continents.
Our Working Group meetings were hybrid in format, though due to the hour, it was very early for the Americas during the Climate Working Group meeting. We had a presentation on FAO's GLEAM, their GHG tool. It has potential for our members to use, but we may also be able to help FAO with source data from the countries in which we have national roundtables or initiatives.
Since both our and FAO's objective is to improve understanding and data quality for emissions reporting, we are keen to explore the possibility of working together on this. Following our meetings, our President, Bob Lowe visited FAO in Rome and I joined via Zoom to discuss collaboration with FAO on a number of fronts. As our work has touch points with GLEAM, LEAP, GASL, the COAG sub committee on Livestock and the Sustainable Livestock Transformation Initiative, we discussed creating a common workplan.
Initially, this will simply consist of keeping each other well informed about activities, and disseminating information about them through our various communications channels. In this way our activities contribute to FAOs objectives and they can also help spread the word about the work that the beef industry is doing.
The climate working group has a number of other activities including the survey and review of accounting tools which is underway, as well as a position paper on land sector removal guidance issued by GHG protocol in line with a submission made to them by the Global Dairy Platform. Please sign up for the Climate Working Group mailing list* to be fully updated on these activities and more.
Josefina will cover the Nature Positive working group meeting in more depth below. It was discussed that GRSB taking a more formal position on deforestation aligned with our Principles and Goals. Nothing has been finalised. Again, to be part of those discussions, please sign up for the Nature Positive Working Group mailing list*.
The National Roundtable constituency held an open meeting, that is, including participants from outside of the constituency. This was also hybrid, and again probably a challenging time for many of those not in Italy, so thank you to those of you in Australia and New Zealand who were up in the middle of the night for that.
One of the exercises was to gather opinions on hot topics and emerging trends that need to be addressed by GRSB and or National Roundtables. Usually there are complementary roles at both levels, particularly in terms of communication. Several of the topics raised have a logical place in the ongoing working groups, although the precise focus may need some refinement.
Suggestions included producer support initiatives, ESG and reporting standards, Greenwashing and the need for data to avoid such claims, science communication and aligned messaging, comms geared to policy and regulation, water quality, use and measurement, role of cattle in circular systems, and the welfare and epidemiological impacts of changing climate, and others.
As you can see it was a rich discussion as always. We get a lot of value from our various constituency meetings and encourage our members each to join their own constituency meetings.
On Thursday morning, we started with a panel with Andrea Bertaglio, Michele Battaglia (both from Italy) and Jerzy Wierzbicki (Poland). The theme was around communication and the role of beef and leather in sustainable food systems.
In Europe, in particular, the public and policy narrative have for some time focused on the negative impacts of beef production and largely ignored the positive role of both beef (in nutrition, grassland preservation, nutrient cycling and crop systems) and leather (circular economy, long lasting and high value material from a by-product).
As Andrea put it: "We cannot respond to emotional arguments with technical information. Our discussion should communicate what science is telling us in simple form, rather than the science itself." In order to do this we need a range of communicators from different sectors, including NGOs, farmers and popular science articles (as opposed to journal articles).
Following that discussion, we were given a concrete example by Matteo Cerruti of a project involving Corteva and INALCA in Italy that has been gathering data on the impact of some modified agricultural practices in the supply chain including fodder and manure management, which has contributed to a significant reduction in emissions.
Roz Davies then led an ERBS panel discussion which included representatives from Ireland UK, France and Italy. It was clear that having national level platforms was the right way to go, as the systems in each country differ quite markedly. While there are certainly common challenges across the EU, including legislation set at the European level, implementation and solutions need to be tailored to the context.
Speaking of context, we must thank our many polyglot participants for presenting in English. With the number of languages represented in the room it would have been complicated and expensive to try and arrange translation!
We will talk more about our strategy session and the field visits next week.
*Sign up for Working Group mailing lists by sending an email to Julie James (julie.james) at grsbeef.org. Please reference which Working Group(s) in which you have an interest.
