A pilot project to determine whether
Canadians can produce beef to McDonalds Restaurants chain standards
for sustainability has concluded after two years.
Now, the pilot results are in the
hands of the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, an initiative
working towards similar goals locally. It will now create a
verification framework based on the pilot to be finalized by late
2017.
Canada could become the first nation
in the world to be able to make a “sustainable beef” claim and
that would likely boost exports which already take 60 per cent of
Canadian production.
Canadian farmers, most of them in
Alberta and Saskatchewan, supply McDonald’s so it can deliver on
its promise to use only Canadian-produced beef.
Fawn Jackson, executive director of the Canadian
roundtable, said McDonald's helped bring the conversation about
sustainability to the mainstream. The roundtable had recently formed
when the fast-food chain first approached it in 2014.
"In Canada, we had a number of the different,
what I'll call puzzle pieces, to sustainability. But the pilot
project has really helped put those puzzle pieces together,"
Jackson said.
World Wildlife Fund U.S. is one of the founding
members of the global roundtable, and its beef director Tim Hardman
said beef production impacts more natural resources than any other
animal that's raised for food.
