 October 2007 Newsletter - letter from HalSee our Newsletter Archive for previous publications Dear colleagues, The learning journeys and meetings we had in Guatemala last week were productive and inspiring, and, as is our practice in the Sustainable Food Lab, we kept asking ourselves, “Are we ‘tipping’ the system?” About seventy people came together in Antigua after participating in four different learning journeys in the Central American countryside. Discussions moved between concrete case studies and the “big questions.” See the Guatemala Meeting Report and other meeting materials for more details. Our first case study was of a value chain that begins with thousands of Mayan farmers on small plots in the mountains of Guatemala. The farmer-owned Cuatros Pinos Cooperative hires local people to grade and pack green beans that are brokered by LA Salad, and sold on the shelves of Costco stores across North America. This green bean story shows how to keep small farmers in an the game and contribute to the success of all involved. In addition to case studies and discussion about tools and methods, Mark Lundy offered his analysis of best practices in value chain improvement, Bill Vorley presented research into the unintended consequences of supermarket development, and Jim Tanburn described international donor agency focus on indicators and measurement. (Most meeting presentations are posted on the Food Lab website.) At the end of the meeting, we shared what had been important for each of us, and in addition to case studies and best practices, many people talked about the value of learning in a cauldron of different perspectives, different cultures, different languages, and different meanings even when we’re speaking the same language. A young indigenous woman who is leading the Juan Francisco Foundation that grew out of the green bean project said, “We all have dreams and I’m realizing my dream through the opportunity provided by Cuatros Pinos. You can’t defend what you don’t love and you can’t love what you don’t know, so I encourage all of you to think about the lives being lived among the indigenous people in Guatemala.” I heard more than one person talking about “recalibrating” their work based on the week’s experience. Andy Murphy of WWF, new to the Sustainable Food Lab, observed that “there is a lot of positive energy that doesn’t know where to go.” He then said he was happy “to join this work in progress, a great experiment.” Jan Kees Vis of Unilever, who has helped lead the Lab from the beginning, reminded us of the rare opportunity to talk about “the big questions,” and how we have to have diversity in the room to have meaningful discussions of these questions. When the Sustainable Food Lab began in 2004, Gene Kahn of General Mills called the Lab an “epicenter of innovation.” Now innovations are sprouting all over the system. One of the tasks of the Food Lab is to nurture and learn from them. But we still face a global “race to the bottom.” Commodity buyers can’t afford to take account of “externalized” costs—damage to soil, water or habitat, or pressures on the rural population to move into the slums of large cities. If these challenges were simple to solve, we wouldn’t need the Sustainable Food Lab. Many important steps are in motion. Commodity roundtables are creating standards. Buyers, traders, farmers and NGOs are negotiating global agreements to protect rainforests from deforestation. Retail chains and food service distributors are asking suppliers to comply with sustainability criteria and codes of conduct. These and other actions are promising but not yet accomplishing a collective shift in the direction of the system. Shifting the “race to the bottom” to a “race to the top” will require collaboration among a critical mass of buyers, public concerns mobilized by global NGOs, and, eventually, the involvement of governments. “Collaboration” is a deceptively common and simple word, but we all know that collaboration can be transactional, and collaboration can be rooted in values. Transactional collaboration is about getting more than you give, and is essentially short-term. Long-term partnerships are about leading into the future. I sense that our practical work on value chains, the deep listening that happens on learning journeys, and the crisp analysis we get from NGO and academic experts are all fueling progress in the right direction. We can only make progress together. Separately we’ll reproduce the system we already have. At one moment in Guatemala I asked Jan Kees Vis our perennial question, “Are we tipping the system?” He answered with a sparkle in his eye, “I’ve been asked to help build sustainability more into the DNA of Unilever. Isn’t that tipping the system?”
Hal Hamilton PS, some reminders:
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