Altia advances carbon farming in the barley value chain with focus on sourcing criteria development and contract farmer education – updated Baltic Sea commitment for the years 2020-2025
Organisation: Altia Oyj
Time: 9/26/2018 – 12/31/2025
Description:
Altia is a leading Nordic alcoholic beverage brand company operating in the wines and spirits markets. Altia produces, imports, markets, sells and distributes both own and partner brand beverages. The key ingredients in Altia’s alcoholic beverage production are grain spirit distilled from Finnish barley, as well as pure groundwater. The barley used for the production of grain spirit at the Koskenkorva plant is bought from about 1500 farms, which cover approximately 2,5 % of the total
field area in Finland. Altia works together with contract farmers to promote sustainable agricultural practices and to improve material efficiency, aiming to continuously minimize the environmental impacts of Altia’s production.
Altia is committed to working actively in the Carbon Action company platform together with BSAG, researches and other relevant stakeholders.
Actions of the Commitment are:
• Selected Altia contract farmers participate in the Carbon Action pilot by dedicating a section from their fields in order to study the impact of the farming practices on soil for a period of 5 years.
o These farmers are committed to actively following instructions given by the Carbon Action project.
o Altia covers the costs from soil sampling of their contract farmers in the project.
• Altia communicates with the contract farmers regarding sustainable agriculture through various channels such as meetings, fairs, events, newsletters and farmer extranet. Communications activities are planned together with BSAG.
• Altia investigates how scientifically proven best practices in carbon farming could be integrated into its purchasing criteria by 2025, for example, by benchmarking with other grain purchasers and cooperating with farmers.
• Altia aims to train all contract farmers in farming practices that promote soil fertility and carbon sequestration by 2025. The level of the training shall ensure that the farmers are able to practically implement carbon farming practices on their farm.
• Altia communicates about the Carbon Action project and its progress and results through its general communication channels such as website, social media, press releases and reports