DEVELOPMENT OF PRINCIPLES AND CRITERIA

After the closure of the nominations for the DG, RTRS received around 70 nominations for participation on the definition of responsible soy process, from a range of organizations and individuals.

The RTRS Executive Board undertook a selection process in August to choose a group of soy stakeholders to form the Development Group (DG). The final choice of group composition has not been an easy one, but the Executive Board is confident that the range of actors in the soy chain, and the social and environmental interests related to soy production and processing has been included (see below for composition DG).

The first meeting of the DG took place in mid-October 2007 in Mato Grosso, Brazil, and was facilitated by Proforest. Additionally, organizations which form part of the RTRS Executive Board organized a field visit to help DG members understand some of the issues related to soy production and processing in that part of the world.

The second DG meeting took place in the February (2008) in Rosario, Argentina.
As part of the process, after the meeting in Rosario the RTRS DG released two draft documents for public consultation:
1. a draft set of Principles and Criteria
2. a draft document of  ideas on implementation and verification models
(see pdf. documents below this text)

During this public consultation period, closed on May 30 2008, the RTRS invited stakeholders to give input to enrich the process, ensuring that all groups have a chance to contribute.
The next DG meeting will take place in Puerto Iguazú, Argentina, in August 2008.

The DG is composed of a broad range of stakeholders with an interest in soy production and processing.  The DG participants were selected to represent the different interests and experiences of the three RTRS constituency groups: Producers; Industry, Trade & Finance and Civil Society.  In order to ensure that the Civil Society participants included a balance of social and environmental experts, this constituency was sub-divided into Environmental and Social interests. In order to achieve a DG composition which included a good range of geographical and technical experience, some constituencies have more participants than others. However, they all have an equal weighting:  in the unlikely event that the DG needs to vote on any issue, the 3 constituencies will each have an equal number of votes (6 votes each).

It was decided to have 8 producers in the producers group to have a broad representation of geographical regions, type of production, and scale of operation.. The 8 producers will have together 6 votes (each person 6/8th vote).

At the second Roundtable conference in Asunción in August 2006, one of the two key mandates given to the Organizing Committee of the RTRS was to initiate the development of principles and criteria (P&C) for responsible soy production and trade, together with a mechanism for verification that the P&C are being implemented in practice.

The first phase of this development process was the identification of nine key impacts of soy in Brazil in April 2006 developed by a Technical Workshop attended by 60 invited participants. Based on these, draft principles were then produced and discussed in Asunción. The final draft of these principles is available on the RTRS website, www.responsiblesoy.org.

The second phase will be the further development of the principles, criteria, and indicators for responsible soy, and a draft verification system. This work will be carried out by the DG which will be made up of a broad range of stakeholders with an interest in soy.

To  produce  a  set  of  baseline  requirements or standards, expressed as verifiable  principles,  criteria and indicators that define responsible production and early stages of  processing  of  soy  beans.  These requirements will refer to the processes through to crushing and trade. The principles, criteria and indicators will be developed with the potential to  be implemented by committed producers, processor and traders regardless of size of operation or geographical location, and with the intention to be used within a verification system;

To develop a verification system for soy production and early processing, including, but not limited to, definition of the unit of verification, the verification process requirements (the required process for establishing whether the standard has been met) and the accreditation requirements (the approval mechanism for the organisations which undertake verification).

The DG will work toward achievement of both goals in an integrated way. While the first meeting will focus initially on the principles, criteria and indicators development, from the second meeting onwards a sub-group will be created to work specifically on verification systems, and this work will be strengthened and deepened in line with the principles, criteria and indicator work. Verification specialists and experts will be invited to accompany the DG during this process.