Questionnaire farm pilotsPage 1 of 7

SAI Platform Farmer Self-assessment Checklist

Questionnaire

Introduction

This document briefly addresses the background of the SAI Platform Checklist. Thisquestionnaire provides you with a list of points of attention that we invite you to respond to. For specific comments on checkpoints we would like you to refer to the checklist itself.

Background

The Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI) Platform has recently developed a Checklist for farmer self-assessment. The‘Checklist’ is a simple tool for farmers to assess their farm sustainability.It covers environmental, social and economic aspects. An easy scoring mechanism enables farmers, and the purchasers to which they supply, to quickly get an idea of the farm sustainability performance.

The Checklist aims to reduce duplication of farm assessments and audits and to assist more farmers getting on the path towards sustainable agriculture.

Many companies ask farmers, from whom they source agricultural raw materials, to comply with internal company codes. When farmers deliver goods to several companies, the process of having to comply with various codestends to be complex. Harmonizing sustainability requirements from various companies, however, provides the farmers with a simpler solution, a whole farm approach.

Procedurefor the pilot feedback

The Pilot Phase runs from May till November 2013. Pilot Pioneers are provided with version 1.0 of the Checklist that they can use and test in their environment and supplier / producer base. The experiences of the pioneers are of vital importance to improve the Checklist. It will be used to develop a new version that is better equipped to serve as a simple solution for farmers. The pilots should also contribute to the identification of implementation support measures that could be developed by the SAI Platform to facilitate its roll out.

With this document, the SAI Platform aims to collect information about the use of the Checklist by either farmers, traders and / or the companies themselves. You are invited to provide your opinion and thoughts on overlapping topics. This Questionnaire and a version of the Checklist have been developed to guide companies through the feedback process. Both leave room to include comments on specific checkpoints. We invite you to complete Questionnaire. In the case of any remarks about the content, we would like to refer you to the Checklist itself.

Planning

Version 2.0 should be made available and endorsed in the next General Assembly in 2014. The Pilot Phase is a vital step in the development of the new and improved version. It is planned as follows:

Activity / Deadline
Start Pilot Phase / May 2013
Deadline (formal) execution pilots / 30thNovember, 2013
Process feedback in improved version / December 2013 – February 2014

You are kindly requested to keep to this planning when executing a pilot.

The Checklist - explanation

The Checklist is a result of the efforts of a taskforce of the SAI platform that has converted P&Ps into a clear Checklist. A few considerations were taken into account:

  • The Checklist should be considered as a stand-alone product. It should be suitable for self assessments by all types of farmers (with support in the case of very low education or literacy of farmers).
  • The Checklist aims to drive improvement. To be able to do so, there are checkpoints for basic and advanced. All farmers should be able to meet the basic points, perhaps with some effort, while in later stages they are required to comply with a certain percentage of advanced points as well.
  • Answers should be ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ and in a few specific cases ‘not applicable’.
  • The target group is all farm(size)s. In the guidance commentsin a few cases, reference is made to smallholders in lower income countries, since a more flexible interpretation may be necessary for certain contexts (e.g. illiterate farmer with few hectares in developing country). Lower income countries are defined as all non-high income countries in the World Bank classification:
  • The relevant ILO Conventions are meant to be completely integrated into the Checklist already, i.e. ILO conventions should be integrated into the labor checkpoints.

Questionnaire

We would like to ask your opinion about the content and some cross-cutting topics. Please provide your input below.

Pilot pioneer data

Name of Pioneer:

Contact person:

Pilot testing period:

Crop(s):

Geography:

Type of farmer (e.g. agriculture / mixed farm / horticulture):

Number of participation farmers:

Multitier supply chain tested with:

Language of checklist:

Test objective (why do you participate in the pilot and what do you use the checklist for?):

Questions

  1. Suggestions to improve the participation of farmers
  2. How was the Checklist brought to the farmers? Did they fill it in themselves? What channels were used to reach the farmers? Did you use a digital or paper version?
  1. On a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being good) how would you rate:

Criterion / Score
1= poor
5 = good / Remarks
Suitability of the Checklist to efficiently bring it to the farmers
Amount of effort to reach farmer’s attention withChecklist
Suitability of the Checklist format to be used by farmers (i.e. Excel format)
  1. Do you have any suggestions to improve the participation of farmers?
  1. Suggestions how to improve the applicability of the Checklistat farm level and how to improve farmer appreciation.
  2. How did the farmers experience the Checklist?
  1. On a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being good) how would you rate:

Criterion / Score
1= poor
5 = good / Remarks
Applicability to all farm types
Applicability to various farm sizes
Applicability to all types of crops
Time needed for farmers to fill in the Checklist
Amount of support needed for farmers to fill in the Checklist (1 = a lot, 5= none)
Level of compliance with the Checklist (i.e. can a farmer easily comply with the majority of checkpoints or is it too difficult?)
Willingness to use the Checklist by farmers
Awareness at farmers that this Checklist may support improvement for their farming practices
Awareness that this Checklist may reduce the amount of their efforts to comply with purchaser demands
  1. What would be your suggestions to improve the suitability and applicability of the Checklist for the farmers?
  1. What are your suggestions to improve data retrieval and managementofcompleted Checklists?
  1. How did you organize the data retrieval from the farmers / supplier base?
  1. What kind of data management/analysis did you perform on the data?
  1. On a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being good) how would you rate:

Criterion / Score
1= poor
5 = good / Remarks
Necessary efforts to collect the data from farmers (1= much efforts, 5 is no efforts)
Suitability of the content of the Checklist for meta data analysis
Suitability of the format of the Checklist for meta data analysis (i.e. Excel)
  1. What is necessary to optimize the data retrieval and management, in order for the company to fully profit from the data?
  1. What are your suggestions to improve the content and formatof the Checklist?
  2. What is your opinion about the content and format of the Checklist (content and format)?
  1. On a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being good) how would you rate:

Criterion / Score
1= poor
5 = good / Remarks
Simplicity of the language
Composition of the topics (logical order and classification)
Completeness/ coverage of relevant criteria
Quality of the guidance
Appropriateness of classification (basic / advanced)
  1. What would be your suggestions for improvement of the content and format of the Checklist?
  1. What are your suggestions to improve the relevance of the Checklist to your existing sustainable sourcing strategy?
  2. How does the current version of the Checklist fit into your sustainablesourcing strategy?
  1. On a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being good) how would you rate:

Criterion / Score
1= poor
5 = good / Remarks
Scopeand rigor of the Checklist related to your company’s scheme
The current Excel format of the Checklist
The relevance of the scoring system for your company’s data management
Feasibility of using the Checklist to all your suppliers
  1. How often would you use the Checklist among your suppliers (e.g. annual) and for which suppliers (all suppliers, random samples, risk based samples)
  1. What would be your suggestions for adjustment of the Checklist in order to make it more compatible to existing company systems for improving / supporting sustainable agriculture and monitoring systems?
  1. Other suggestions
  2. What are your general suggestions to move forward with the Checklist? How can the SAI Platform organize scaling the Checklist under its members? What is necessary to make it happen?
  1. What kind of additional implementation support tools would you like the SAI Platform to develop, in order to facilitate the use of the Checklist among your suppliers?

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