CHINA – Tate & Lyle PLC, a world leader in ingredient solutions for healthier food and beverages, is expanding its sustainable stevia programme in China to include more farmers following a successful on-farm pilot that was conducted in 2021.
Farmers under the expanded program will receive support to implement best practices identified in its 2019 stevia life-cycle-analysis and verified in its 2021 on-farm pilot.
In developing the program, which aims to ensure that the stevia industry grows sustainably, Tate & Lyle partnered with environmental charity Earthwatch Europe (Earthwatch) and worked with Nanjing Agricultural University in East China.
During the 2021 pilot program, Tate & Lyle focused on improving the environmental and social impacts of stevia production.
In its first full year, the pilot programme saw promising reductions in all of the nine impact categories measured against the baseline, including a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and an improvement in metrics linked to local water quality.
The pilot also found that optimised fertiliser use can positively influence stevia productivity and steviol glycoside content, resulting in a greater proportion of the desirable sweet components used to make stevia ingredients, verifying findings from the 2019 study.
Building on this successes, Tate & Lyle is expanding the program in 2022 to include stevia farmers in Linze, Gansu Province, West China in addition to an expanded cohort of farmers at the farm-pilot region of Dongtai, Jiangsu Province, East China.
“Supporting sustainable agriculture is front and centre of our plans to deliver on our commitment to be carbon net zero by 2050.
Our stevia programme in China epitomises our purpose in action and is laying the groundwork for the sustainable development of the stevia industry.”
The farmers will implement the agronomic practice changes piloted last year, and trial additional changes to further minimise their environmental footprint, the ingredients company revealed.
Participating growers will be supported to pursue sustainability-related verification for their stevia through the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative Platform’s Farm Sustainability Assessment.
Additionally, the farmers have been encouraged to sign Tate & Lyle’s Stevia Supplier Sustainability Commitment3, a pledge to reduce the environmental impact of stevia farming.
With the stevia agricultural sector at a relatively early stage in its adoption of more sustainable practices, Tate & Lyle said the science-led programme is helping to build the evidence base and demonstrate the positive environmental, social and economic impacts associated with these changes.
Nick Hampton, Chief Executive of Tate & Lyle, said: “Supporting sustainable agriculture is front and centre of our plans to deliver on our commitment to be carbon net zero by 2050.
Our stevia programme in China epitomises our purpose in action and is laying the groundwork for the sustainable development of the stevia industry.”
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