“Climate change is a top concern for our members and it’s an incredible honor that IFPA’s work in sustainability and climate-smart agriculture has resulted in the association being granted this status by the United Nations,” said IFPA CEO Cathy Burns. “The fresh produce and floral community is part of the solution through our commitment to climate-smart agriculture practices, and we will ensure our voice is heard to influence outcomes in global forums such as the UNFCC and COP29.”
Included within the UNFCC are the 2015 Paris Agreement and the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. In sum, these agreements are tasked with stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system, in a time frame which allows ecosystems to adapt naturally and enables sustainable development.
Muruetagoiena has led many of IFPA’s sustainability programs and efforts, including representing IFPA as Chair of the Consumer Goods Forum Sustainable Supply Chain Initiative’s Environmental Working Group, which developed benchmarking environmental standards that were released to the fresh produce and floral sector in mid-summer.
“Sustainability has always been a cornerstone of my professional career and I am humbled to have this opportunity to represent IFPA,” Muruetagoiena said. “We are participating in COP29 next month in Azerbaijan to ensure our industry is represented at the highest global meeting discussing climate change.” It was during last year’s COP where agriculture was first included in the U.N.’s climate plans.
IFPA research has found that failure to act on climate and extreme weather are the top 2 global threats with the highest potential to damage societies, economies and the planet. The climate-resilient future study noted that a global mean temperature rise in the range of 1.5 to 4.5°C by the end of the century would agriculture far beyond manageable thresholds.
In early December, the association will holding a climate-smart field trials in California as part of its USDA grant-funded program titled “A Vibrant Future,” which incentivizes specialty crop growers to adopt climate-smart production to establish a consumer-driven, climate-smart market for fruits and vegetables grown using climate-smart practices.
Additional resources, including case studies and consumer research, on sustainability are available through the IFPA website.
