Hagge de Vries
Hagge de Vries, Raw Material Coordinator at Heineken Internatio
nal, believes sustainability is the way forward. He's in charge of the
Skylark project, a programme investigating sustainable ways of pro
ducing barley. The name is appropriate; the skylark is an endan
gered bird species in the Netherlands which happens to thrive on
sustainably farmed land.
AS SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE THRIVES, S
0 WILL THE SKYLARK
The testing ground for this project is in the
Flevopolder, where Heineken International is
working with Agrarische Unie, a Dutch collec
tor, and 12 farmers to develop sustainable
methods of barley production.
The first phase of this project consisted of
discussions with stakeholders - universities,
environmental organisations, agricultural
institutes and otherfood industry players-to
define 'sustainability'. This orientation round
was enlightening in two ways. It brought
home to Heineken and the farmers involved
that, for barley production to be sustainable,
the crops that rotate with barley also have to
be grown sustainably. It also helped define a
set of indicators that served as a starting
point for developing sustainable production
methods. Some of these indicators - such as
the amount of water or fertiliser used - are
relatively easy to measure and improve upon,
but an indicator such as soil fertility repre
sents a bigger challenge. It takes into account
the amount of organic matter present in the
soil, its composition and structure and the
number of worms and other life forms it
contains. The skylark and other birds and
animals are also included in the biodiversity
indicator.
These indicators were recorded for each
farm by taking 'zero measurements', to help
the farmer develop more sustainable farming
methods. One farmer might be doing fine in
terms of the amount of water or fertilizer
used, but could have a lot of work to do to
reach a certain level of biodiversity. Another
farmer might be doing well in terms of soil
structure, but needs to learn to use less
energy.
'What matters is the care that goes into
farming,'says Hagge de Vries. 'You must try
to maintain or improve the quality of the land,
the air and the water wherever you can.'
The Skylark project will run through to the
end of 2005. From 2006, the methods that
have been developed will be tested on a
larger scale and, by the next decade, an
increasing part of the barley Heineken uses
for brewing beer will come from farms that
are producing it sustainably.
For Hagge de Vries, however, one thing
above all has become clear. 'It's all about the
soil. If you can improve the quality of the soil,
you've won.'
Raw material consumption 2003
performance of Heineken world-wide, percentage by weight (water excluded)
MALT
25
