The Global Sustainable Food Laboratory: an example of the U process in use

1. The Global Sustainable Food Laboratory: an example of the U process in use Hal Hamilton Director, The Sustainability Institute Presented to SoL Sustainability Consortium

2. Context • Agriculture is the largest industry on the planet and employs an estimated 1.3 billion people and produces 1.3 trillion at the farm gate. • About half of the habitable land on Earth is used for agriculture and livestock production. • Food production has more than kept pace with global population growth, on average food supplies are 24% higher per person than in 1961 and prices are 40% lower. Over same period global population has doubled from 3 to 6 billion.

3. The Unintended Consequences • Since 1945 moderate, severe or extreme soil degradation has affected an area the size of China and India combined. • More than 70% of the world’s fishery resources (for which there is information) are now fully fished or overfished. • 10,400 people die per year in the U.S. from cancer related to pesticides.

4. Despite Productivity Gains, Food Systems Don’t Feed People Well • FAO estimates that 800 million people in the world are seriously underfed. • About 80% of world’s hungry live in rural areas and 50% of them, or 400 million, - live in low income households who depend primarily on farming.

5. We see this pattern of falling prices across commodities

6. And increasing production

7. The Vision: Bringing Sustainable Agriculture into the Mainstream • There are many small, marginal, niche, and philanthropic examples of more sustainable food systems. • The efforts of most players, however, are fragmented and polarized. • The players lack a “safe space” and a process for working together.

8. Change Can Occur at Different Levels Re-acting Response Challenge Re-structuring Old structure New structure Enactingnew reality Uncovering existing reality Re-designing Old processes Newprocesses Re-framing Old thinking Newthinking Re-generating Source: Scharmer Purpose

9. The U-Process is a Three-PhaseMethodology for Addressing Complex Challenges III: Co-Realizing:transforming action I:Co-Sensing: transforming perception II: Co-Presencing:transforming self and will Source: Senge, Scharmer, Jaworski and Flowers

10. The Food Lab Team is From Three Sectors and Three Continents Working List

11. Executive Champions • Lawrence Benjamin, CEO, US Foodservice, United States • Antony Burgmans (alternates: Jeroen Bordewijk, Andre van Heemstra), Chairman, Unilever, Netherlands • Pierre Calame, President, Charles Leopold Mayer Foundation, France • Wout Dekker, CEO and Chairman, Nutreco, the Netherlands • Richard Foster, Vice-President, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, United States • Luiz Gonzago Murat, Chief Financial Officer, and Gilberto Tomazoni, CEO, Sadia, Brazil • Kurt Hoffman, President, Shell Foundation, United Kingdom • Bart Jan Krouwel, Managing Director, Sustainability and Social Innovation, Rabobank, the Netherlands • John Machuzick, Senior Vice President, General Mills, United States • Joost Martens, Regional Director, Mexico and Caribbean, Oxfam GB • Steven McCormick, President and Chief Executive Officer, The Nature Conservancy, United States • Eugenio Peixoto, Secretary of Agrarian Reorganization, Ministry of Agrarian Development, Brazil • Gerrit Rauws, Director, King Baudouin Foundation, Belgium • Mark Ritchie, President, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, United States • Bruce Schearer, President, The Synergos Institute, United States • Richard Schnieders, CEO, SYSCO, United States • Paul Trân Van Thinh, Former Ambassador of the European Union to the World Trade Organization • Roland Vaxelaire (alternate: Thierry Legault), Director of Quality and Sustainable Development, Carrefour, France

12. Some of the Lab Team Members • Johan Alleman, Program Officer, King Baudouin Foundation, Belgium • Pedro Alfredo Avendaño Garcés, Executive Director, World Forum of Fish Harvesters and Fishworkers, Canada • Arthur Bogason, Chairman, National Association of Small Boat Owners, Iceland • Arie van den Brand, Director, In Natura, former Member of Parliament, the Netherlands • Pedro de Camargo Neto, Sociedade Rural Brasileira, Brazil • João S. Campari, Director, The Nature Conservancy, Brazil • Anthony Cavalieri, The Nature Conservancy, United States • Juan Cheaz Paleaz, Regional Policy Coordinator for Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean, Oxfam GB, the Dominican Republic • Jason Clay, Vice President, Center for Conservation Innovation, World Wildlife Fund, United States • Meire de Fatima Ferreira, Coordinator for Sustainability, Sadia, Brazil • Osler Desouzart, Consultant, formerly with Sadia, Perdigão and Doux Frangosul, Brazil • Mark Eckstein, (former) Environment and Social Development Department, International Finance Corporation, United States • Alberto Ercilio Broch, National Confederation of Agricultural Workers (Contag), Brazil • Sheri Flies, Corporate Counsel, Costco Wholesale Corporation, United States • Laura Freeman, President and CEO, Laura’s Lean Beef, United States • Gilles Gaebel, Fresh Food Development, Carrefour, France • John Goldstein, Senior Managing Director, Medley Global Advisors, United States • Rosalinda Guillen, former farm worker and leader in the farm worker movement, United States • Oran Hesterman, Program Director, W. K. Kellogg Foundation, United States • Eugene Kahn, Vice-President for Sustainability, General Mills, United States • Panayotis Lebessis, Economic Analysis and Evaluation, DG Agriculture of the European Commission

13. Some Lab Team Members (cont.) • Mark Lundy, Senior Research Fellow, Rural Agroenterprise Development Project, International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Colombia • Theresa Marquez, Marketing Director, Organic Valley Cooperative, United States • Alberto Monterroso Morales, President, Commercializadora Aj Ticonel, Guatemala • Neyde Nóbrega Nery, Executive Director, Assocene - Associação de Orientação das Cooperativas do Nordeste, Brazil • Frederick Payton, Executive Director, AgroFrontera, Dominican Republic • Clive Peckham, Director, AlimenTerra, United Kingdom • Bjarne Pedersen, Principal Policy Officer, Consumers International, United Kingdom • Larry Pulliam, Senior Vice President, SYSCO, United States • Elena Saraceno, Policy Advisor to the President, European Commission, Belgium • Peggy Sechrist, Texas farmer, President, Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group, United States • Bruce Tozer, Former Managing Director, Structured Trade and Commodity Finance, Rabobank International, United Kingdom • Frank van Ooijen, Public Affairs and Corporate Communications Director, Nutreco, the Netherlands • Henk van Oosten, Staff Member, Innovation Network, Ministry of Agriculture, the Netherlands • Marcelo Vieira, farmer and board member, Brazil Specialty Coffee Association and Brazilian Rural Society, Brazil • Jan Kees Vis, Sustainable Agriculture Manager, Unilever, the Netherlands • Pierre Vuarin, Program Director, Charles Leopold Mayer Foundation, France • Craig Watson, Vice President, Quality Assurance and Agricultural Sustainability, SYSCO, United States • Tensi Whelan, Executive Director, Rainforest Alliance, United States • Paul Winter, Trust Catering Manager, South London and Maudsley NHS Trust, United Kingdom • Casper van Zijl, Sustainability Officer, Royal Ahold, the Netherlands

14. The Food Lab Team is Applying the U-Process to Address the Sustainable Food Challenge June 2006 Launch of Sustainable Food Network or Partnership (in design) Convening Interviews in US, Europe and Latin America November 2005 Review Workshop in Costa Rica June 2004 Foundation Workshop in Netherlands August-October 2004 Learning Journeys in Brazil April 2005 Design Studio in Salzburg Six Initiative Areas of Work Launched November 2004 Innovation Retreat in Arizona

15. The Lab Team Has Spawned Six Initiative Areas of Work Secretariat Executive Champions Lab Team Latin America Livelihoods Business Coalition Food for Health Responsible Commodities Sustainable Fisheries Framing sustainability to public New York City : improve school food health and sustainability Iceland: quota fund arrangement US Research Replicable model of supply chain innovation: Green beans in Guatemala Guatemala : prototype a supply chain that increases value upstream Research: commodities certification & standards Public Policy in EU Meta Standard Development: for buyers and investors EU Research Chili: Wild fisheries DR small farmer capacity development Packaging innovations Share, harmonize, and improve standards and audits Paris, London : pilot projects in schools and health care Latin America Learning Alliance messaging

16. Lessons Mid-Stream • Convening • The diversity of Lab Team members to “see” the whole system, and their collective capacity to take action is essential. • Sensing • Learning Journeys are powerful when facilitated with lots of opportunities for reflection (not study trips). • In our next Lab, we are adding a much greater use of systems thinking tools along with scenario building.

17. Lessons Mid-Stream (continued) • Presencing • The capacity to quiet the mind and sense emerging realities is necessary for transformative change. We’re still learning how to facilitate group presencing, and in future labs we will encourage presencing practices from the beginning, and rely less on the solo event. • Although the Food Lab solo didn’t result in breakthroughs, it created a wonderful sense of shared commitment and common purpose.

18. Lessons Mid-Stream (continued) • Realizing • What had been designed as a 2-year project has become a long-term evolving network. • The Lab Team choose six areas of work where they saw high leverage, and we were initially quite concerned about the separation of these initiatives in silos. Over time, however, as initiative leaders identified partners they needed for success, the initiatives have become more and more multi-sector and linked with one another. • Integration of systems thinking into the U process

19. Average price o s Profits per producer o Pressure to expand markets PRODUCTION GROWTH DRIVERS Demand s Pressure to boost production per unit cost o s Profits s Commodity supply Demand for commodity Total Production B1 Reinvestment R2 R4 s R3 s s Capacity s Price Total production Size and tech level per producer s Efficiency & Scale s Capacity s R1 s Total profit Reinvestment s The Productivity Dilemma R1

20. Risks of the Overproduction Treadmill

21. Here’s What We’re Still Trying Working to Figure Out • Government involvement • Creating environments for NGOs and businesses to engage together in practical projects that stretch everyone’s visions and capacities • Anti-trust issues This application of the U process in multi-stakeholder settings is a work in progress!