🔎 ZOOM ON... // FSA, a verification for driving continuous improvement of on-farm sustainability

What is the purpose of FSA verification?

The Farm Sustainability Assessment (FSA) is a set of tools for food and drink businesses that want to assess, improve and validate on-farm sustainability in their supply chains. Developed by the SAI platform which is a non-profit network of over 130 members worldwide, this program strives to support farmers and companies in moving towards sustainable production of agricultural materials with a standardized approach.

💡 What is the advantages of FSA? In order to

• Harmonize sustainability definitions
• Reduce assessment and assurance duplication
• Promote continuous improvement
• Increase the consistency of communication within the food and beverage supply chains about sustainability expectations

🌿What are FSA guarantees?

• To Improve social, environmental, economic, and general farm management practices
• To Ensure reliable supply

Is FSA a certification standard? No, the Farm Sustainability Assessment (FSA) is a set of tools that is designed to engage farms in assessing and improving their sustainability performance. It is centered around an on-farm self-assessment that can be implemented on a single farm or with a group of farms. The results of the self-assessment can be independently verified by a third-party Verification Body. This results in a Letter of Attestation to support an FSA Bronze / Silver / Gold claim related to the product(s) produced by the farm(s) to customers. The FSA provides* business-to-business assurance of on-farm sustainability performance.**

FSA is verified by Ecocert Since February 2020, Ecocert decided to verify this label & therefore to support the move toward better farming practices, enabling the development and implementation of sustainable agriculture with FSA verification. This third-party verification, performed every three years, enables farms to have an independent overview of their farming practices.

How will Ecocert carry out the FSA verification? To be assessed according to FSA, the auditor from Ecocert will audit the crop during the growing season. Ecocert will evaluate the farm on every applicable criteria to determine a performance level (Not yet bronze, Bronze, Silver, Gold) stated in a Letter of Attestation issued later. The audit focuses on the continuous improvement of the farm.

FSA KEY FIGURES

• +100 sustainability schemes benchmarked against the FSA
• +100 000 farms worldwide belong to FSA verified farm groups
• +40 countries with FSA-verified producers
• +70 agricultural crops grown using FSA verified sustainable farming

FSA 2.1 and FSA 3.0 coexist The new version 3.0 has been released in April 2021. The main differences between FSA 2.1 and FSA 3.0 are in the Farm Management System requirements:

• Added requirements such as Volume Accounting System specifications, Farm Management Groups need to present a Continuous Improvement Plan that fulfils requirements, Internal management accountability specifications.
• Introducing audit control points for FSA Management System Requirements
• FMG Coordinators are required to send their verification Body a list of farms every year, indicating any changes to the composition of the FMG There is an 18-month transition period from FSA 2.1 to FSA 3.0

➡️For more information and to request FSA verification, contact sustainableagriculture@ecocert.com or click here

Source: https://saiplatform.org/fsa/