Sustainable Food Laboratory

Osler Desouzart likes to tell the story of how he joined the Sustainable Food Lab (SFL) to “teach some good sense to the NGOs,” and ended up partnering with an NGO for one of his crowning achievements. A fierce business man (by his own description), Desouzart now says he’s doing, “missionary work to spread the Sustainable Agriculture Gospel among Brazilian poultry producers via concrete goals of feed and water usage reduction.” The man who made such an impact on him is Jason Clay, VP, Center for Conservation Innovation and Managing Director of WWF-US’s agriculture program. “I used to meet someone from an NGO and look around for a weapon. Now I offer them tea,” Desouzart said. Desouzart says he has changed as a result of the Lab and he’s taking the poultry industry with him.

Desouzart joined SFL to help NGO members understand that industrial agriculture is vital to preventing starvation. In the process he said he learned that the collateral damage left in the wake of the green revolution cannot be minimized but must be eradicated. Judging between starvation and environmental degradation he now says, “there isn’t one more important than the other.” And he’s carrying the message to poultry and pork producers all around the world.

Desouzart started by inviting Clay to be the keynote speaker at a large international poultry forum over the objections of other organizers. The event, "Ave Expo Americas 2005," typically features technical papers on topics such as genetics, sanitation, nutrition and market aspects of the poultry sector. Organizers considered environmental issues secondary to their interests and objected to this change in focus. But Desouzart prevailed and offered full disclosure to Clay, "I asked Jason, 'would you accept an invitation to speak to a hostile group?" Desouzart said. 

The event was was held in Foz do Iguacu, Brazil in August, 2005. Over 2000 people visited; 826 poultry professionals from 26 countries paid to attended the entire conference which Desouzart chaired. In addition 75 press credentials were issued. Organizers estimate that about 650 people heard Clay's address.

In a speech titled, "Live as if you were going to die tomorrow and make agriculture as if you would live forever," Clay told poultry professionals that it would be both profitable and strategic to use more sustainable agriculture practices including reductions in feed and water. Poultry professionals, academicians, researchers and experts in genetics, animal nutrition, husbandry, animal welfare and veterinaries were already working on reducing feed conversion rates but Clay challenged them with a set of concrete goals, environmental rationale and a timeframe. From 1.78 kg grain /1kg live-weight to 1.4 kg grain and from 32 liters of water/bird to 16 within 20 years.

According to Desouzart, Clay did not escape some friendly fire from the crowd but immediately afterwards people started discussing it. Over dinner that night, researchers argued about it, during the breaks people commented on it, journalists and companies asked about it. “It became like a flag that people are rallying to,” Desouzart said. “Just the other day,” Desouzart said, “a poultry geneticist friend called me, ‘Osler, I have the bird that can convert at 1.4.’”

Inspired by this reaction Desouzart has been "preaching the sustainability gospel," whenever possible, in industry gatherings, conferences, meetings. Lately he has started taking the message to the pork industry as well. Desouzart will give presentations at 5 conferences before the end of February this year. 

Desouzart also achieved a secondary goal with Clay’s speech of familiarizing poultry professionals with environmentalists, “If I invite someone like Jason Clay next time, no one will ask, ‘what is he doing here?’ this much we have achieved.”