Sustainability’s Unintended Consequences [Opinion]

There’s a sea change taking place in attitudes about your vegetables. Consumer demand for local, sustainable, natural, and organic is driving more people to fresh produce. That’s a great trend for growers and a nice opportunity for retailers who can tout their ability to deliver those benefits to their customers.

Whole Foods’ is a high-profile recent example. The Whole Foods chain has long been considered a leader in the natural and organic grocery market. But the retailer is ramping up efforts to strengthen its position as competitors such as Walmart are promoting their own sustainability programs.

With its new Responsibly Grown initiative, Whole Foods has instituted a rating system for produce and floral growers, with in-store tags identifying its suppliers with a “Good,” “Better,” or “Best” rating. Growers are reviewed on their production practices in a number of areas including:
• soil health
• air, energy, and climate
• waste reduction
• farmworker welfare
• water conservation and protection
• ecosystems and biodiversity, and
• pest management.

These are all topics that deserve the attention of every producer in the nation, and a positive story for the company to take to the public. On the whole, there’s much to be applauded about the Responsibly Grown initiative. But dig into some of the requirements a little further, and there’s the potential for a troubling message in that positive story.

The program’s pest control requirements for growers are one such sticky point. To achieve the top rating on its “Good, Better, Best” scale, Whole Foods prohibits the use of four neonicotinoids to “address concerns about impacts on pollinators.” Some of those  products, including imidacloprid and thiamethoxam, are valuable, labeled materials for vegetable crops.

In and of itself, the restriction isn’t the end of the world. Processors and other buyers have traditionally been involved behind the scenes in designing crop protection programs they want growers to use. And certainly growers selling to Whole Foods can live with a “Good” or “Better” rating.

But when big retailers make public statements about trying to avoid materials for the benefit of their customers and the environment, it puts pressure on other retailers to follow suit. In the end, we could see a de facto and unnecessary ban on a valuable tool based more on appeals to public sentiment than on science.

You’re already moving inexorably in the direction of softer, more worker-, environment-, and consumer- friendly production practices. It’s wonderful to have customers that want to share your story.

But in its push to distance itself from its competitors on sustainability and put itself in the best light with consumers, Whole Foods’ Responsibly Grown initiative may end up handcuffing our nation’s vegetable growers at the same time it’s helping them.