SHAFFE to lead Southern Hemisphere Fruit Exporters strategy on sustainability and presents first outlook during Fruit Attraction

During Fruit Attraction, SHAFFE organized the seminar “How the sustainable produce sector could look like in 2030”, which was held on October 6, 2021 in a hybrid conference format, where SHAFFE representatives had the opportunity to share some of the learnings and insights from the last 8 months of work, and visions of what the Southern Hemisphere’s sustainability strategy should look like.

“Sustainability is not a foreign issue for Southern Hemisphere fruit exporters. In fact, it is a matter in which each member of SHAFFE is making great and diverse efforts at both production and export levels. Therefore, SHAFFE’s objective is to generate a strategy that not only reflects where the fresh fruit industry of the South is heading, but also the aspects that are important for markets and consumers in these matters”, says Charif Christian Carvajal, SHAFFE President.

Nelly Hajdu, Secretary General SHAFFE stressed the importance of developing a sustainability strategy for the Southern Hemisphere. “Our purpose with task force is to invite all our members to build a White Paper on Sustainability. We are all united by common challenges about it, therefore, the way forward is to face them together, collaboratively and with a common strategy”.

During the task force process the following 10 common Southern Hemisphere Sustainability Challenges have been identified:

1. Water
2. Public-Private Partnerships
3. Biosafety, biodiversity and waste reduction
4. Communication and education
5. Complexity and duplication of external sustainability requirement
6. Carbon emissions and trade
7. Financing, investment and economic viability
8. People
9. Measuring and reporting
10. Preserving the ecosystem

“We hope to have the White Paper ready within the next few weeks, with practical, real and possible actions to be taken by 2030“, says Carvajal.

The SHAFFE sustainability committee is made up of Marta Bentancur from Uruguay, Paul Hardman from South Africa, Ricardo Adonis from Chile, Jorge Souza from Brazil, Gary Jones from New Zealand and Gabriel Wasserman from Argentina, who will also lead the group.

The conference at Fruit Attraction brought together live and virtual SHAFFE members from Argentina (Alejandro Pannunzio and Gabriel Wasserman) Brazil (Jorge de Souza), Perú (Sergio del Castillo), Uruguay (Marta Bentancur), South Africa (Paul Hardman), Chile (Ricardo Adonis and Charif Christian Carvajal), and New Zeland (Alan Pollard).