D3.4 Common data pool on sustainability standards and competitiveness
Creators: name: Menghi, Alberto
name: Giglio, Lorena
name: Soffiantini, Serena
name: Steiner, Bodo
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2024

description: In D3.4 a common data pool on sustainability standards and competitiveness has been created. The focus countries are Germany, France, Italy, USA, Brazil, Argentina and South Africa. Moreover, for dairy, Zimbabwe and Algeria have been investigated. For beef, Morocco and Namibia are also covered.

Competitiveness has been studied with the internationally recognized approach of “typical farm”, using a model farm representing the most common farm type for a specific product in a specific country or region. Details about the method are described as well as the characteristics of the typical farms (size, annual production, number of labour units, hectares cultivated). Following this approach, production costs (labour costs - in terms of family labour and paid labour -, wages, prices), subsides and cattle returns are reported. 

Moreover, the focus is on imports and exports: the top five import-export destinations (for dairy and beef products) have been analysed in term of quantities for the main commodities. Additionally, an in-depth cross-country analysis on import and export relationships has been addressed: trade between each country and all the others has been described.Trade tariffs have been expressed (when available) as percentage in the trade flows for the main products and classified according to duty type (effectively applied tariffs, bound tariffs, most favoured nations tariffs, etc.).

Social sustainability has been investigated with reference to some SGDs strictly linked with the case studies on which this deliverable is based on. In particular, the social aspect is a primary focus in Case Study (CS) 10 and 13, which fall within the action area of SDGs no. 1, 2, 3, 6. Given the complexity of the topic, SDGs have been translated to the more operational disclosures of the GRI Standards -Global Reporting Initiative Standards- which represent global best practice for reporting publicly on a range of economic, environmental and social impacts. A summary table with the translation of the used SDG into the GRI system is also provided as part of a data pool on environmental and social sustainability standards relevant for agricultural trade. In particular, in order to investigate the level of national compliance with labour rights and the consistency between national legislations and the market dynamics, a challenging work on existing legislation on labour standardization has been carried out, for each engaged country. The result is an excel database, which enables to compare different countries and to understand the dynamics of the trade mechanism through the partner network. The main sections of this database are working time, paid leaves, occupational health and safety, social welfare, payments and trade rights. The sources of this information are the main official government websites and available public databases. 

Environmental sustainability has been investigated with the support of Agribenchmark beef (CS10 - beef) and IFCN (CS13 - dairy). As for dairy, single countries have been taken into account and a certain number of typical farms have been studied, in terms of emissions (kg CO2) per 100 kg of milk produced. As for beef, the approach using typical farms was not feasible, so reference has been done to data provided by literature. In particular, FAO and its publications has been privileged as sources. The limits which have been encountered - and that must be considered in drive conclusions starting from this data - are related to the lack of information as regards to specific countries and to the heterogeneity of data itself, in terms of unit of measurements, approaches and year of investigation.

According to the Grant Agreement Description of Action, T3.4 ‘Assessment of the environmental and social costs and benefits of FVCs’ covered the four case studies (#3, #10, #11, #13).  However, a mistake in the GA preparation was to include the case study#3 in T3.4, this is because the data need in T3.4 is at farm level and national level, i.e., typical farm approach, which is not line with the case study#3. Therefore, the implementation of T3.4 does not cover the case study#3. This explanation has been already provided in the first periodic report Section 5.1 ‘Deviations from Annex 1 and Annex 2 (if applicable)’.  In addition, D3.4 does not cover data from the case study #11, as this case study is still undergoing data collection and investigation. Accordingly, D3.4 covers the two case studies #10 and #13.