McDonald’s Agrees to Promote Pesticide Best Practices

As the result of an ageement with it’s shareholders, McDonalds will start surveying their American potato supply chain and promote best practices in the reduction of pesticide use. The global burger company is the largest buyer of potatoes in the U.S., according to the release, and the agreement puts back an earlier shareholder resolution filed by the Bard College Endowment, Newground Social Investment and the AFL-CIO Reserve Fund.

According to the statement McDonald’s agrees to:

• Survey its current U.S. potato suppliers.

• Compile a list of best practices in pesticide reduction that will be recommended to the company’s global suppliers (through the company’s Global Potato Board).

• Communicate findings related to best practices to shareholders, and in the company’s annual corporate social responsibility (CSR) report.

“Leadership companies such as Sysco (which supplies Wendy’s), General Mills, and Campbell’s have already demonstrated that pesticide use reduction makes sense from both an environmental health and business perspective. We welcome McDonald’s stepping up to the plate and look forward to supporting the company’s efforts to reduce pesticide use in the future,” said Dr. Richard Liroff, executive director of the Investor Environmental Health Network, in a statement.

This looks like a huge move forward for McDonald’s, but it will be interesting to see how it plays out in practice. We’re talking about large volumes of potatoes with food inspection already getting overwhelmed as it is. But the initiative is, of course, a good one.