SFAP sustainability certification
In some countries, such as Brazil, LUC is responsible for the lion’s share of the carbon footprint of soy. The SFAP certificate enables the participating farmers to assure their buyers that in the last 20 years their soy cultivation has not caused any LUC. The individual farmers within this producer group all operate within the Cerrado Biome in Brazil. The producer group consists of 35 individual farmers with a total of 160,000 hectares of land under cultivation. From an analysis of satellite maps, Control Union, a certification body, has determined that of the total area, 86,000 ha has been in production for longer than 20 years and therefore that there has been no LUC or deforestation on this land. For this area a verified SFAP Non-Conversion certificate has been issued.
Blonk Consultants used data from a representative group of 14 individual farmers to carry out the environmental analysis of the soy cultivation of this producer group. The farmers supplied data on aspects such as yields, use of manure and fertilisers, use of pesticides and energy use on the farm. From this input, Blonk Consultants calculated the full environmental footprint of SFAP soy from Brazil.