The Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN) invites you to participate in the public consultation process of its three standards: Sustainable Agriculture Standard, Standard for Sustainable Cattle Production Systems and Group Certification Standard. We need your valuable input, keen insights and the wisdom of your experience. The three standards will be reviewed together in one process along with the Certification Policy and Conformity Indicators. The new standard will be published in 2014 after approval from SAN’s International Standards Committee and Board of Directors – SAN’s governance bodies for standard-setting - and will be binding for audits one year later.

The SAN is always working to update and improve its farm standard. This happens through the development of new modules, such as for cattle, climate change adaption and mitigation, smallholder groups, and chain of custody, as well as the important Local Interpretation Guidelines and general guidance documents for standards. Every few years, the SAN does a complete overhaul of the standard for farms that want to promote their products as Rainforest Alliance Certified™. The last substantive revision was made in 2008 for the development of additional criteria for oil palm and sugarcane plantations, which are folded into the current July 2010 standard version. Additional processes were led in 2009 for the development of the SAN Standard for Sustainable Cattle Production Systems, and, in 2010, for the SAN climate module. SAN wants to make its Sustainable Agriculture standards more adaptable to smallholder scenarios – which comprise 90% of the farms in our system – rollout additional modules in the standard, add innovative elements and improve the interpretation and scoring of these criteria during certification audits.

The public consultation process will start 11th of April 2013 and will finish November 30, 2013. You will be able to provide your comments online at SAN Public Consultations. In addition, you can participate in workshops with farmers, scientists, NGOs and other experts. With the support of our regional and local representatives, we expect to organize workshops in the following countries:

Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cote d'Ivoire, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malawi, Peru, Tanzania,  Amsterdam-The Netherlands, Frankfurt-Germany, London-United Kingdom, Washington D.C.-United States of America, Stockholm-Sweden.

For more information find here the complete REVISION PROCESS SUMMARY.
  

The Sustainable Agriculture Network is pleased to announce that Andre de Freitas has assumed the position of SAN Director and will begin working in this capacity as of January 2013. Andre brings over 10 years of experience in senior positions related to natural resources management and sustainability, both in non-profit organizations and the private sector, at a local and global level. This experience makes him the ideal leader for the SAN, particularly in the coming years of important growth and evolution. Andre shares the SAN´s passion and values and highly values transparency and dialogue as elements to advance the goals of non-profit organizations and social movements.

Andre has a long history of supporting social and environmental sustainability initiatives. He obtained an engineering degree in forestry from the University of São Paulo, after which he worked to improve worker’s rights by implementing certification schemes and codes of practice at the International Federation of Building and Wood Workers.  He brings valuable private sector experience in finance, through his tenure as Social & Environmental Manager at Rabobank where he coordinated the development and implementation of a social and environmental policy for the bank’s operations in Brazil. He further expanded his field experience by working as an auditor for SAN founding member, IMAFLORA, and later leading the organization as its Executive Director.

Most recently, Andre served as the Director General of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Under Andre’s leadership the past four years, FSC grew by more than 85 million acres and 13,000 companies, increasing its reach to more than 100 countries. He also has a keen understanding of technical program development, particularly in developing policy and standards frameworks, which he gained through his work as the Head of Policy and Standards at FSC, prior to becoming the organization´s director. In parallel to his role at FSC, Andre also served as an ISEAL board member, and later as board chair, where he participated in guiding the initiatives of the ISEAL Alliance and becoming well-versed in the opportunities and challenges facing the changing landscape for voluntary standards schemes today.