Tamara Muruetagoiena, vice president of sustainability for the International Fresh Produce Association, recently attended the 2024 Climate Change Conference — COP29 — in Baku, Azerbaijan. Muruetagoiena spoke with The Packer to discuss her experience there and the future of sustainability in the new year.
Muruetagoiena said IFPA recently became observers of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which seeks to stabilize greenhouse concentrations at a level to prevent human-induced interference with the climate system. She said that the UN allows nonprofits such as IFPA to join in the conversations with world leaders around climate change.
Muruetagoiena said COP29 was a little underwhelming, as many world leaders opted not to attend.
“I think their hearts are not there,” she said. “The world leaders are not where they need to be for all of us in this situation in which we are in worldwide.”
While world leaders may not have attended COP29, there was a strong agricultural presence in Azerbaijan, Muruetagoiena said, adding that the 2024 was the first time agriculture became part of the climate conversation.
“One thing that became very clear to me was that competitive cooperation among agricultural industries is the way to win this one; we are part of the solution,” she said. “We know it, and we hear narratives that are maybe not so positive. We need to change the narrative.”
Muruetagoiena said the fresh produce industry offers many health benefits, so the industry must highlight its critical role in feeding the world and its role in the planet’s health.
“We really, really are the solution,” she said. "If you increase your consumption of fruits and vegetables, not only will you improve your health, but you will also improve the health of the planet, and by focusing on better farming practices, we are even a better solution.”
Muruetagoiena said she was on a panel with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to discuss the USDA’s climate-smart program.
“I was able to talk about the incredible work that our farmers, our producers, are doing on what is regenerative and climate-smart agriculture, how committed they are, how curious they are and how benefiting are programs like [USDA’s climate-smart program],” she said.
Muruetagoiena said the fresh produce industry must be in front of world leaders and representatives to discuss the unique challenges to the fresh produce supply chain. Many world leaders do not understand what it takes to get fresh produce safely from the field to market safely and as fresh as possible, she said.
“I think that’s where we come into trouble with them,” she said. “For example, a lot of legislation and regulations around plastics and packaging — we see [legislators] as just very vehement about ‘We need to eliminate single-use plastic,’ and I think that’s a fantastic idea from an environmental standpoint. You have the produce industry, which brings the most basic foods a person should be eating, the most important ones that keep them healthy. They need a vehicle. They need a tool. And right now, that tool to get to market is packaged through packaging.
"Instead of putting regulations against it, they need to be with us and support us, and in moving towards better packaging systems, fewer packaging or different types of packaging that is more environmentally friendly, because we do want to be environmentally friendly, and packaging is not what we do as a core, it’s just a tool and [legislators] need to understand that," Muruetagoiena added.
Topics for 2025
What can the fresh produce industry expect to hear more about in 2025? Regenerative agriculture, Muruetagoiena said.“Regenerative agriculture has come to us as a tsunami — so powerful, so strong, coming from the market, coming from consumers, coming from retailers [and] CPGs, like Pepsi, General Mills, Walmart, all embracing it head on,” she said. “Consumers are really feeling attached to it and feeling good about it," she said.
Muruetagoiena said while the fresh produce industry may not have been at the forefront of sustainability, it wants to be ahead of the regenerative ag tsunami.
“Our industry is very ready, very curious, to take that leap, take that extra step,” she said.
However, the industry lacked a clear definition of what regenerative ag means to it. While it is easy to define in row crops, fresh produce spans many commodities.
“We needed a North Star, something that companies could use as their guiding light, and then they could choose their path,” Muruetagoiena said. “Each journey will be different, but at least they know where they’re walking toward, where are they going.”
She said the IFPA Sustainability Council voted on the definition at the association's 2024 Global Produce and Floral Show in Atlanta. From there, IFPA and the Sustainability Council, with the help of the climate-smart grant, will help research best practices.
“That’s how the work starts,” she said. “We know that we’re going to lead in this space. I know it. I feel it. There’s a lot of energy there. … We have the definition and in 2025, we’re going to focus heavily on it and then start defining outcomes and work with different companies who are embracing regenerative agriculture.”
Muruetagoiena said to expect to hear more about food waste in 2025; not the negative aspects of food waste, but how companies divert produce to transform it into other food products and uses.
“We’re changing the narrative now on food loss and food waste,” she said. “It used to be a lose-lose situation. Data is transforming all of this and connecting growers with companies that do upcycling.”