JAPFA was invited to participate as a road tester in a Social Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) project of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). This gave us the opportunity to measure the impact and benefits of our partnership programme with poultry contract farmers. The assessment was completed in 2021.

A Social Life Cycle Assessment to understand the impact of our partnerships with contract farmers on their socio-economic conditions

To produce live broiler chicken, we operate our company managed farms, and also work with contract farmers under a partnership programme. In Indonesia alone, we partner with around 10,000 poultry contract farmers who run their own commercial broiler farms.

The partnership programme aims to provide a substantial socio-economic contribution to these farmers. Fair partnership, knowledge sharing, and technical assistance are the key drivers of our partnership programme. The programme builds and enhances famers’ knowledge through education on up-to-date farming practices. For example, JAPFA provides technical expertise to its contract farmers to upgrade their farms from open to closed-house systems with better controlled environment, resulting in healthier chickens and increased productivity. In addition, Japfa’s contract farmers have a clear contractual agreement on profit sharing and a floor price which helps buffer market price volatility.

To identify the impact of our farmer partnership programme in Indonesia, we participated as a road tester in a Social Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) project of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The Social LCA is a technique to assess the social impacts of products and organisations from raw materials extraction to final disposal. We were the only company representing the agri-food industry globally and the only company from Southeast Asia.

The Social LCA demonstrated that being a contract farmer with JAPFA improve the farmer’s skill set, productivity, yields and ultimately economic livelihood. According to the findings, 86% of contract farmers interviewed experienced an income increase since their partnership with Japfa began.

The results of the assessment were presented at the 10th Life Cycle Management Conference, which was held in September 2021 in Stuttgart, Germany.