Investissements agricoles : comment transformer les pratiques pour un impact positif ?

Agricultural investments are essential drivers for transforming farming practices. As a result, companies in the agricultural sector are increasingly being asked to demonstrate their positive impact on the environment, society, health, and living conditions of producers. At the FARM Foundation's international conference, committed companies, from upstream to downstream, discuss the tools and indicators they use to measure their impact and how they leverage these approaches.

Impact measurement and technical innovations

Hamza Addam, Head of Innovation at OCP Nutricrops, a subsidiary of the OCP Group (Office Chérifien des Phosphates) and world leader in the phosphate fertilizer market, reiterated that the Moroccan company was aiming for carbon neutrality by 2040 and reducing its environmental impact. According to him, faced with the challenges of climate change, greenhouse gas mitigation, and the economic and productive viability of farms, OCP Nutricrops must support producers in a necessary transition that benefits ecosystems and the entire value chain. The group has undertaken key actions and significant resources: a green investment plan to decarbonize operations and use renewable water sources, soil mapping to adapt fertilizers to agricultural practices and soil conditions, and support for regenerative agriculture in Morocco, notably by participating in the government's goal of achieving one million hectares of no-till farming. The group positions itself as a major player in the field of "personalized" fertilizers (adapted to soil characteristics) and their sustainable use. It measures the economic and social impact of its investments on carbon emissions and the environmental footprint, on employment, local economic development, and the improvement of farmers' living conditions.

In the same area of soil health and carbon emissions/storage, Boris Naguet, Director of Operations for the Tourba Africa and Brazil program at InnovX, recalls the company's position as a developer of carbon credit projects and explains Tourba's economic model. “We train farmers in the field to apply a whole range of regenerative agriculture practices. By increasing the organic matter content in the soil, farmers' productivity and yield are improved. This helps protect the soil and therefore combat drought by keeping water in the soil. And the final impact is that it sequesters carbon in the soil, and that's the indicator we're going to focus on.” Farmers' practices (vegetation cover, crop rotation, etc.) are then financially valued. It is no longer simply investments that change practices, but also the opposite: good practices are remunerated, which allows farmers to invest or generate new income. Tourba works in parallel with international certifiers (Vera, Gold Standard) to verify that practices effectively sequester carbon in the soil and to issue carbon credits.

“Finally, we sell the carbon credits to companies that want to offset their emissions by investing in projects like ours, and we pay the farmers who participated in our program (up to 65 % of the income generated by the credits) ", says the representative of Tourba.

Tourba has a strategy to expand by 100 million hectares by 2030. To achieve this, Boris Naguet emphasizes that digital technology is an essential tool. We have tools that we call MRV: M for Measurement, since we are able to precisely measure carbon sequestration in the soil via machine learning and satellite image analysis, R for Report because we share with the certifiers a very high level of detail and precision on the farmers who participate in the program. And finally, V for verification: we need to be able to follow these farmers over time to ensure that the carbon credits we issue are indeed the consequence of the practices we promote, so that we cannot attribute to ourselves carbon sequestration in the soil that would be natural or independent of our activity. Given that we work in Brazil, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Morocco, we are talking about tens, hundreds, thousands of farmers, so without digital technology, it would be impossible... ". Note that the subject of MRV was also addressed by the FARM Foundation with its partner the international "4p1000" Initiative during a seminar (https://fondation-farm.org/outils-mrv-impact-transition-agroecologique).

Certify and label to accelerate the transition

MRVs and carbon credits are a way to certify the commitment and impact of farmers and businesses in the supply chain. Other complementary certification tools exist. Blaise Desbordes, Managing Director of Max Havelaar France, discussed the method and impact of the fair trade label launched in 1988, which distributes a social development bonus (10 % of the purchase price) to more than 2 million producers and workers. “We are fortunate to be four decades old and to be highly recognized for making an impact. We have a global organization, 140 countries, divided into two groups of stakeholders. First, agricultural producers in around thirty sectors—coffee, bananas, cocoa, etc.—who suffer from marketing conditions. This is the founding stone of this NGO. And the other group of stakeholders, in the market countries, who are the processors or buyers right down to the consumers who communicate about this impact. They are committed to this cause: improving trading conditions for the benefit of disadvantaged producers.”

To keep its promise of fairness and be credible, Max Havelaar has met the requirements of ISO 17065, a certification standard, with the aim of being a trusted third party. Max Havelaar articulates impact measurement with its theory of change in favor of disadvantaged producers, improving their daily lives and their economic model, with indicators that "are above all measures, descriptive indicators, not specifically what research calls impact measurement."

Impact measurement works in two stages: on the one hand, with steering and description indicators. "This is the heart of our development, since it is an obligation of means. The more people are involved, the more the cause of fair trade wins." on the other hand, with ex post impact studies which come to see whether this promise is kept. "And there, the results are, I believe, as for all large NGOs, mixed. There are things that work very well, there are things that work less well and which are levers for improvement.", concludes Blaise Desbordes.

A partner of Max Havelaar, Compagnie Fruitière, specializing in the production, transportation, and distribution of 900,000 tons of fruit and vegetables, including 750,000 tons of bananas, has been certifying part of its fruit production for 20 years. Asked about the tools and impact measurement in Compagnie Fruitière's vertically integrated model, Jérôme Fabre, its Executive Chairman, emphasizes the work on both the environmental and societal impact of his group, enabled and managed by the use of certification specifications and internal commitments.

On the environmental impact, "Beyond the certifications, which obviously give us indicators and obligations, we ourselves have put in place a certain number of commitments such as reducing the use of phytosanitary products, reducing water and CO emissions.₂ (SBTI). HAS Based on these objectives, we will set a trajectory, with a CAPEX plan, and this investment plan must affect has little pres all dimensions of the company, whether eobviously production, but also other logistics and distribution professions " explains Jérôme Fabre. A concrete example is the development of SIPA software, designed internally to monitor agricultural practices and measure the use of active ingredients while maintaining agricultural performance. Thanks to this tool, the company can measure the effects of reducing the use of plant protection products. The company also uses drones for more precise treatments and to collect data on plantations.

On the societal level, Compagnie Fruitière collaborates with fair trade partners and CIRAD to establish indicators and engage in dialogue with stakeholders. The goal is to reduce rural exodus and improve employee living conditions. The company uses the NEIGHBOR method to gather information from the ground up and develop investment plans aimed at making the environment and economy more sustainable. Jérôme Fabre emphasizes the importance of dialogue with stakeholders and employees to integrate sustainability into all of the company's activities, thereby strengthening employee resilience and engagement.

Expanding impact measurement: stakeholder involvement and operational challenges

Interviewed in turn, Adeline Lescanne, Managing Director of Nutriset, a Normandy-based company that markets nutritional solutions to combat severe acute malnutrition, detailed the company's impact compass. Before doing so, she clarified that for companies, understanding impact has evolved considerably. For Nutriset, the key indicator was the number of children reached and the improvement in their nutritional situation. This key indicator was deemed insufficient to capture the diversity of Nutriset's impacts, particularly on local economies, since the company has created a network of 12 local processors of its solution in developing countries. It also plans to source 50 % of its raw material supplies there by 2030, despite the geopolitical and security constraints that exist. The Normandy-based company has therefore implemented a rigorous monitoring and evaluation system in collaboration with field partners and research institutions. The "impact compass" has several axes: nutritional, financial (because it is necessary to generate income to invest), socio-economic, but also institutional (what is the impact on public policies to combat malnutrition which are not only health policies), climate change (because it is, according to the manager, one of the main causes of malnutrition), and finally an axis on the learning company to attract new talent. So many axes that direct research towards logistics, packaging, nutrition, taste but also adaptation to the climatic conditions of the countries.

Anaïs Riffiod, Director of Apexagri, an international consulting firm specializing in agricultural sector development, discussed the reporting requirements placed on businesses and producers and advocated for a pragmatic approach to the operational challenges of implementation. These challenges have an impact on access to financing. The expert laments the proliferation of standards that complicate access to financing for small producers.

She proposed three ideas for improving impact measurement practices in companies that source raw materials from living organisms (food, cosmetics, luxury goods, etc.):

1. Better understanding of supply chains, not only on a technical and agronomic level, but also on a socio-economic level; replace top-down approaches (setting ambitious objectives without in-depth knowledge of the land) with bottom-up approaches, based on a detailed understanding of producers and ecosystems, and finally map the sectors to assess their maturity and act in a more efficient and appropriate manner.
2. Prioritize qualitative actions by focusing first on small samples in specific production basins, to better understand local dynamics and establish relevant evaluation frameworks before moving to scale.
3. Simplify and harmonize indicators which are today too numerous and complex, and promote a common language.

Avoiding the “environmental Wild West” and strengthening dialogue

Blaise Desbordes (Max Havelaar France) warns of the risk of a "bureaucratization » excessive linked to the multiplication of requirements of reporting, particularly in the context of new European regulations on sustainability and corporate social responsibility. He points out that, if impact measurement becomes an additional administrative burden, it risks distracting producers from their primary mission and complicating the operation of the sectors, particularly to the detriment of smaller players. "It would be paradoxical if impact measurement were a burden for producers; it must be a matrix that makes ecological transition possible and helps make product trade credible.", he specifies.

This observation echoes current European debates on regulatory simplification. The desire to reduce administrative complexity must not result in deregulation at the expense of social and environmental ambitions. The director of the fair trade label emphasizes the need to find a balance between obligation of means (fair prices or multi-year contracts) and quantifiable results (ex post impact measurements). He considers that the establishment of economic conditions favorable to the transition (development bonus and remunerative price) already constitutes an impact in itself, because it allows producers to escape the poverty trap and invest in their production tools or in social projects adapted to their local context.

The speakers converge on the importance of more collaborative and territorialized governance where value and risks are better shared between all actors in the chain. Blaise Desbordes points out that cooperation must lead to common rules and a fair "playing field", otherwise we risk creating a " Social and environmental Wild West ". He warns against cooperation that would be limited to unconstrained dialogue, advocating for state intervention to ensure stable and ambitious rules of the game. Finally, the speakers emphasize the need to provide visibility and security to producers, particularly through multi-year contracts and effective recognition of the costs of the transition in price formation. Dialogue, transparency, and trust are thus identified as essential levers for effective governance and an inclusive and sustainable agricultural transition.

Jérôme Fabre, for his part, emphasized the need for stronger dialogue between financiers, buyers, and producers. According to him, the success of the agricultural transition depends on the co-construction of adapted solutions, integrating field constraints and the expectations of the various stakeholders. He emphasized that agricultural margins, particularly in commodity sectors (banana, cocoa, coffee), are often insufficient to absorb the additional costs associated with the ecological and social transition.

The head of Compagnie Fruitière highlighted the need for long-term financing mechanisms, adapted to the pace of agricultural investments, which are structurally backed by long-cycle activities. Today, most agricultural loans are short- or medium-term, which limits the investment capacity of farms and does not correspond to the temporality of changes in practices. He therefore calls for an evolution of financial offers, notably through the creation of long-term restructuring loans guaranteed by public schemes, in order to support the resilience and sustainability of farms. He specifies: " Financing stakeholders will have to invent new solutions where resilience and impact are synonymous with value and heritage, risk reduction, allowing privileged access to financing. ".