By David Brough
LONDON, May 11 (Reuters) – The Bonsucro scheme, which
ensures that production of sugar and ethanol from sugarcane meet
environmental, social and business standards, is set to grow
sharply as the industry moves toward sustainable practices.
But certification companies will struggle to keep pace with
demand, Nick Goodall, chief executive of Bonsucro, told Reuters
in an interview on Friday.
Food processing and drinks companies and individual
consumers increasingly seek reassurance that high social and
environmental standards prevail in the production of the food
they buy. Bonsucro is the only major certification scheme for
sugar production.
Goodall said he expected Bonsucro certification, which began
last June, to account for 5 percent of the world’s land under
cane in two years and a third by 2020, up from 1.44 percent now.
Currently around 1 million tonnes of cane production is
Bonsucro-certified.
Bonsucro’s members include leading agricultural groups such
as Bunge, Copersucar and Raizen. Fourteen mills are
already certified in Brazil. Some mills in Australia are being
signed up, and some Mexican mills are expected to join soon.
Beverage groups such as The Cocoa Cola Company bottling
system have bought Bonsucro-certified sugar.
“The buyers of sugar are increasingly demanding provable
best-practice performance from the mills,” Goodall said.
Bonsucro, a London-based non-profit, has set 80 tests that
mills must pass in order to earn certification.
The tests cover areas such as labour rights including access
to safe drinking water, environmental criteria including
judicious use of soil and water, and efficiencies to boost yield
and profit.
Large mills with access to vast swathes of land under cane
have been the first to sign up to Bonsucro.
Companies that join pay a certification fee of 0.007 cents
per tonne.
CHALLENGES AHEAD
Goodall said that despite the prospects for increased
take-up of Bonsucro certification by mills, the number of
companies that can audit mills to ensure they comply with
certification standards is limited.
“The challenge is to manage expectations,” he said.
“The capacity of mills to respond to customers’ calls for
sustainability standards needs to be handled very carefully so
that we don’t have bottlenecks in the various markets around the
world.”
Goodall said countries such as India, the world’s number 2
sugar producer after Brazil and the world’s biggest sugar
consumer, are working towards Bonsucro certification.
However, it could take longer for India to achieve than for
countries such as Brazil and Colombia.
“Bonsucro certification in India is more challenging because
of the extent of small-scale farmers and the lack of
organisation of farming groups like cooperatives,” Goodall said.
Private partnerships between mills and non-governmental
organisations in India are helping to work towards the goal of
certification.
Bonsucro’s main focus this year was to attract more take-up
of its certification scheme in Latin America, Goodall said. The
group plans to stage a seminar in Recife, Brazil, on June 18.
(Reporting by David Brough, editing by Jane Baird)
