Partnerships in Sustainable Agriculture
McDonald’s works with a wide variety of organisations and companies to share information and promote sustainable agriculture. Partnerships include:
- → Sustainable Agriculture Initiative Platform
- → Food Animal Initiative
- → The European Animal Welfare Platform
Sustainable Agriculture Initiative Platform
SAI Platform is an organisation created by the food industry to communicate worldwide and to actively support the development of sustainable agriculture involving the different stakeholders of the food chain. McDonald’s is an active member of SAI.
SAI Platform supports agricultural practices and agricultural production systems that preserve the future availability of current resources and enhance their efficiency. This increases agriculture's contribution to the optimal satisfaction of society's environmental, economic and social requirements.
"This flagship approach is a perfect example of actual feasible sustainable practices on a field level. No paper academic theory, but real farm work. Not waiting for perfection, but starting with what is around and improve it. With those flagship McDonald’s makes sustainable agriculture visible. You can see it is not always easy, but you also can see it is fun and provides professional pride."
Peter-Erik Ywema, Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI)
Food Animal Initiative
The Food Animal Initiative (FAI) was set up by farmers in 1998 in recognition of the fact that commercially robust alternative systems - that significantly raise animal welfare standards, tackle environmental concerns and address issues of human health - can and do exist.
Focused on the "three Es" of Environment (securing the planet in the face of the challenge of climate change), Economics (food must be affordable) and Ethics (food must be produced safely and with the welfare of the animal in mind), FAI farms commercially adjacent to the banks of the River Thames at Wytham, Oxfordshire, and undertakes farm-scale research to improve animal welfare within a commercial farming system. FAI shares its findings via the website and offers regular comment on matters of concern to today's farmers.
The European Animal Welfare Platform
The European Animal Welfare Platform (EAWP) is an initiative by leading companies in the European food chain, who will be working together with research institutes and animal welfare organisations to realise good animal welfare in practice.