Fresh Focus Sustainability Supplement

Certis Belchim’s G4TF project shows positive results in citrus

Certis Belchim has presented the results of a multi-year project to improve sustainability and food security in citrus production. Growing For The Future (G4TF)’s main objective was to compare a programme using conventional treatments (synthetic chemicals) against both the Certis Belchim Zero residue programme (CBRO) and Organic programme (CBE).

Assessment was based on five key performance indicators: good control of pests and diseases in crops; reduction of number of active ingredients of chemical products used; reduction of chemical residues in fruit; minimisation of the coefficient of environmental impact, and support of farmer’s profitability.

“Given ongoing European supermarket requirements to reduce chemical residues in produce, G4TF was developed as a strategic project committed to improving sustainability and food security,” explains Elias Mas, business development project manager at Certis Belchim.

To achieve the objectives with the five KPIs, chemical products were combined with Certis Belchim’s organic products for the CBRO programme and organic products used in the CBE programme.

According to the company, the results of the study, which ran for four years, showed improvements across all five KPIs. Both CBE and CBRO presented the same efficacy against pests and diseases as the conventional programme, along with a reduction of active ingredients of between 38 per cent and 70 per cent, and fruit output with zero chemical residues. Moreover they showed an environmental impact coefficient reduction of between 21 per cent and 99 per cent and increased profitability through improved yield – in some cases by up to 14 per cent.