What is Farm Sustainability Assessment (FSA)?
Farm Sustainability Assessment is a program designed to promote sustainable farming. FSA is developed by The Sustainable Agriculture Initiative Platform (SAI Platform), a non-profit network initiated by leading global companies in the food and drink industry. It offers farmers a standardized way of measuring their environmental, social, and economic performance.
Our farmers have successfully completed the assessment process with impressive results: FSA verification scores at 80 per cent Gold level and 20 per cent Silver level. This means that top-tier sustainable farming practices that align with global standards are widely implemented among these farmers.
What FSA means for KMC’s customers
The verification means that our customers can be sure they have a supplier with a transparent value chain. It also means that KMC can now document what we’ve known for years: Our potato farmers live up to some of the highest standards of sustainable farming in the world.
“We chose FSA verification because it’s a recognized scheme of measuring sustainability in farming crops. It’s important for us to support a common system with worldwide recognition, because it’s clear to everyone what the scheme involves. We know that FSA is trustworthy,” says Global Sales Director Anders Sikjær from KMC.
Mr. Sikjær underlines that while current stocks last, we have a limited amount of verified starch up for sale. For now, FSA-verified ingredients will be supplied upon request. Our new crop from harvest 2024 is verified and can be sold as such.
About the Farm Sustainability Assessment program
FSA is one of the programs developed by SAI Platform in collaboration with pioneering companies. It enables food and drink businesses to assess, improve, and validate on-farm sustainability in their supply chains.
The goal is, in the words of SAI Platform, to grow a better planet. Whether the goal is a better planet or better ways of utilizing it, SAI Platform has emerged as an important means of achieving it. The FSA provides the system to lead businesses on a path to more considerate ways of acquiring their raw materials.
So far, more than 350,000 farms in over 60 countries worldwide are verified within FSA groups with a wide variety of crops – from blueberries in Canada to cinnamon in Indonesia – all grown in accordance with its principles. And now also potatoes in Denmark.
About SAI Platform
SAI Platform is a global non-profit network of over 180 companies. Its members collaborate to advance sustainable agricultural practices through pre-competitive efforts. The Platform's membership is diverse, spanning the entire agricultural supply chain. Active members include companies from the food and beverage industry, such as farmer cooperatives, manufacturers, processors, retailers, and traders.
How the assessment works
The FSA offers three levels of achievement: Bronze, Silver, and Gold. The Bronze level indicates compliance with essential sustainability practices. Silver represents a higher, intermediate, standard. This requires a more comprehensive adoption of sustainable methods. Gold represents the highest level, reflecting sustainable farming practices that stand out across environmental, social, and economic criteria.
The self-assessment is built around a set of questions to farmers, which is backed up by on-site inspections. Recognition against the FSA requires a third-party verification process to be completed.
How did KMC perform?
The self-assessment consisted of 109 questions covering the environmental, social, and economic performance of the farms. 40 of KMC’s potato growers were randomly sampled to answer the questions. Nine of these were selected for external audits to confirm the validity of the answers given.
The final audit went as expected and resulted in a verification at 80 per cent Gold level. This is shown on the Letter of Attestation.
You can find out more about KMC's sustainability efforts in the sustainability section of our website.