Active Projects
Below are some of the projects that our stakeholders and colleagues are actively working on. For more information about a project, please contact the organizers directly.
If you are involved in a smallholder sourcing project and would like to have it referenced here, please complete our online submission form.
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Market Access for Smallholder Farmers in NepalProject goal: The aim of Market Access for Smallholder Farmers is to reduce poverty amongst smallholder dairy farmers in Nepal by sustainably increasing the income of 10,000 small producers in Chitwan, Dhading, Tanaha and Gorkha districts. The project seeks to leverage its work with these farmers to impact the wider district and national level dairy market systems. To achieve this, the project is working closely with key private sector service providers, district Chambers of Commerce and Industry, and relevant government line agencies to achieve lasting changes to the input and services market, the value chain and the enabling environment of the dairy sector. Opportunities were identified to work with leading national dairy sector companies to develop and provide appropriate services to smallholder farmers in the project working area and beyond. This is a key pillar to achieving transformations in the market systems at district and national levels that will benefit smallholder dairy farmers at scale. To date the Practical Action has joined forces with Nimbus Agri business Enterprise, a leading national agricultural-based input company to improve the dairy service market for the mutual benefit of smallholder farmers and Nimbus’ business. A number of other private sector partnerships are close to public anouncement. This page will be updated when further partnerships are announced. For more information contact: Deepak Khadka: Team leader of the Practical Action Markets and Livelihoods programme in Nepal: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Alison Griffith: Head of Practical Action’s international programme for Markets and Livelihoods: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Alexis Morcrette: Research assistant in Practical Action’s international programme for Markets and Livelihoods: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Project Timeline: 2010-2012 |
Mission Driven Companies Explore Sustainable Sugar
Several Food Lab member companies have joined forces in order to gain a better understanding of the realities faced by small-scale sugar cane farmers. The effort—led by Food Lab staff—is collecting farm level data from certified fair trade, organic smallholder farmers in Paraguay. This project is designed to accomplish two goals: 1) provide greater insight on the livelihood and challenges of cane farmers; and 2) test the concept of a lightweight, cost effective set of core metrics for smallholders. An initial baseline survey of 45 farmers in 3 organic, fair trade certified cooperatives was completed in April 2012 by SFL and local experts in collaboration with Fairtrade International’s Paraguay staff. Initial findings showed fairly low food insecurity. The farmers’ average income was over $10/day, yet only 50% of farmers were earning over the national poverty line of $4900/year. The average area planted in cane was 5 hectares within a wide range of farm sizes (from 2 to 63 hectares). Average yields were only 70% of potential yields, despite very high levels of training and best practice adoption. In a series of focus groups, farmer organization leaders emphasized that better access to training on farming best practices, improved seed and affordable, high-quality, organic inputs were key to improving productivity and livelihood for their members. Interviews with the processing mill and exporting company revealed that access to efficient transport to move the cane from the remote smallholder farms to the mill was a significant barrier to sustainability in the system. Additional surveys will be completed in early 2013 with generous support from the Ford Foundation. These surveys will reach a larger number of farmers and include interviews with hired cane workers to understand the livelihood profile of this group—as workers are often the most vulnerable population in an agricultural system. Companies are learning from this project via the Food Lab's Values Based Sourcing peer learning group which includes Annie's Inc., Ben & Jerry's, Clif Bar & Co, Theo Chocolate, Stonyfield Farm, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Sodexo and Unilever. This effort is part of a larger body of work to research and support the development of core performance metrics that can be embedded into supply chains to track livelihood performance of smallholders over time. Results will be shared with other companies and organizations conducting this work at an event in December as well as at the Sustainable Food Lab Annual Leadership Summit, April 2013. | |
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Frozen Vegetables, GuatemalaThe Guatemala Highland Value Chain Development Alliance brings together world-class expertise on sustainable agriculture, poverty alleviation and agribusiness with market demand and technical assistance to improve small scale vegetable production and benefit rural communities in the region of Sololá, Guatemala. This innovative partnership focuses on building transparent and equitable business relationships between transnational corporations and small-scale producers. Farmers and buyers alike face complex challenges to stable farms and supply chains, such as the effects of climate change, eroding soil fertility and volatile global markets. The project works with the existing 3000 smallholder supply base while expanding opportunities for new producer associations in the highlands of Guatemala. Through this engagement, the farmers expect to increase productivity, gain access to stable markets, diversify production, and increase participation and leadership of women. Project Partners: Oxfam GB, SYSCO, Superior Foods, SUMAR, SFL, CIAT, ADAM |
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Oxfam/Unilever Smallholder Sourcing, AzerbaijanOxfam/Unilever Smallholder
Sourcing, Azerbaijan
In 2007, Oxfam Great Britain made an unusual move in their effort to engage the global private sector in addressing rural poverty. Rather than critiquing how/whether companies contribute to poverty alleviation, Oxfam asked the Sustainable Food Lab to facilitate a learning journey to bring private sector colleagues to rural Honduras where Oxfam had been working with marginalized farmers. Together Oxfam, SFL and the private sector partners walked through numerous remote farming systems, met with farm leaders, saw local market access initiatives, and brainstormed about how Oxfam and the private sector could partner to bring about economic opportunities. This journey inspired Oxfam GB and Unilever to look for ways to integrate small-scale farmers into Unilever's supply chains in ways that maximize the potential development impact. Through a program of joint activity, Oxfam and Unilever are working together on learning how to do business with smallholders in a way that improves their livelihood. "We believe that securing our supply of raw materials can go hand in hand with economic and social development in rural areas, providing better incomes to smallholder farmers and agricultural workers." ---Jan Kees Vis, Unilever More at: |
New Business Models for Sustainable Trading Relationships
These case studies are part of a publication series generated by the New Business Models for Sustainable Trading Relationships project. The partners in this four-year collaboration (2008–2012)—the Sustainable Food Laboratory, Rainforest Alliance, the International Institute for Environment and Development, the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, and Catholic Relief Services—worked together to develop, pilot and learn from new business models to facilitate trade between small-scale producers and formal markets. The collaboration has involved private sector partners in four value chains: (1) outdoor smallholder flowers in Kenya, (2) fine flavor cocoa in Ghana, (3) certified cocoa in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, and (4) dried beans in Ethiopia.
By working in partnership with business and across a diversity of crop types and market requirements, the collaboration aims to synthesize knowledge about how to increase access, benefits and stability for small-scale producers while generating consistent and reliable supplies for buyers.
Some KEY LESSONS from the project about business model innovation with smallholders:
1. Certification can reach farmers at scale with measured income benefits (43,000+ farmers were reached) when it is coupled with strong demand and training. There remains ample opportunity to 1) explore ways to increase the effectiveness of practices intended to boost productivity and smallholder benefits, and 2) better measure impact over time.
2. The dried bean value chain in Ethiopia showed that pulses can be a valuable source of income when they are part of a diverse farm system at scale (15,000 farmers reached directly by the project, an additional 45,000 reached through private sector seed loans as part of the partnership). Yet high levels of disruption in weather and the market system made direct and consistent trading relationships very challenging. The project team concluded that continued investment in seed systems, market information systems to build buyer confidence, and information systems—to track technology adoption and impact at the farm level—are considered worthwhile.
3. Our work in smallholder flowers from Kenya demonstrated the crop’s potential to add considerable value and market share through direct service to retail. The project clearly underscored the high level of capacity needed to succeed in direct retail sales. A commercially sophisticated "ethical agent" was key to facilitating these relationships and building supplier business capacity. Flowers are continuing to sell well Sam’s Club. Additional UK-based retailers are exploring sales potential as well.
4. The fine flavor cocoa project successfully engaged the industry and the Ghanaian government and introduced new practices around cultivation, grafting, and quality management. The project illustrated the fundamental challenge of development projects with a significant research component. It took much longer than anticipated to identify cocoa varieties, propagate them, and create a successful market test. The critical next step is to support the farmers through to a commercial harvest (when traders can take over). We must also focus on scaling this work up to bring the benefits of the new technology and practices to Ghana’s mainstream cocoa sector.
5. The central concept of developing a consistent set of New Business Model principles proved to be a useful framework for engagement and organization. Supply chain coordination, service provision (technical assistance, credit, inputs, seed), and effective market linkages were clearly critical to the success of the projects.
The work which this project kicked-off continues in Food Lab community. The primary focus at this point is on measuring impact, testing ways to link small holders to markets and collecting cases, tools and methods. The new case study reports will be announced over the next few weeks, the first of which can be found in a blog by Abbi Buxton: How Markets Can Bloom for Africa's smalholder farmers. Other similar resources including a practitioners guide developed by Mark Lundy at CIAT are available at the Linking Worlds website.
Other papers in the series are:
Branding Agricultural Commodities: The development case for adding value through branding
Information and communication technologies for development
Commodity exchanges and smallholders in Africa
Sourcing gender: gender productivity and sustainable sourcing strategies
Under what conditions are value chains effective tools for pro-poor development?
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Small holder certified flowers, KenyaProject Goals:
Led by the International Institute for Environment and Development, this project has built on ASDA's commitment to increase sourcing from Africa by developing the world's first smallholder outdoor flower supply chain to be certified by Rainforest Alliance. Rainforest Alliance certification both ensures sustainable production practices and helps communicate the positive story to customers. Project Partners: Publications about this project |
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Fine Flavor Cocoa, GhanaProject Goal: to increase growers’ capacity to grow high-quality, fine flavor cocoa and develop a super-premium brand of cocoa that is recognized worldwide and to work with buyers to develop a transparent supply chain that delivers much of the premium back to the growers. Project Partners: Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker, now a brand of The Hershey Company, Agroeco-Louis Bolk Institute, CIAT, Sustainable Food Lab, Cocoa REsearch Inst of Ghana (CRIG). Additional expertise has been provided by Ed Seguine, Mars Chocolate and the ICCO Fine Flavour Committee Chair, Dr Darin Sukha of the Cocoa Research Unit at the University of the West Indies, Trinidad & Tobago, Gary Guittard, Guittard Chocolate, John Kehoe of Tcho Chocolate and Chloe Doutre- Rousel, Chloe Chocolat, France Project Timeline: 2007-2011 Publications about this Project: |
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Cocoa West AfricaProject Goal: to increase demand and supply in West Africa forRainforest Alliance certified cocoa and to test whether voluntary certification with sustainable practices provides a net benefit to small holder cocoa farmers that can be sustained by the value chain without ongoing subsidy. This project has assisted over 17,000 farmers in West Africa to achieve certification to date. Rainforest Alliance is innovating new business models through this project to increase the access of farmers to the certified market while piloting group certification through traders and rural input stores. These innovations are focused on reaching the non-organized farmers who do not belong to an operating cooperative. These farmers comprise a large percentage of the cocoa farmers in West Africa. |
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White Pea Beans EthiopiaProject Goal: The new business model supports smallholder producers and is focusing on a flexible approach to chain-wide development that improves relationships among value chain actors. In addition to facilitation in linking producers with buyers, the project supports upgrading of the bean value chain through interventions aimed at increasing productivity and improving quality of product and trade relationships. White pea beans (navy beans) have long been an export crop from Ethiopia. The project has closely partnered with ACOS, the largest exporter with a significant processing facility in country, to invest in new varieties and training to improve productivity and quality, to improve links between farmers and intermediary traders and to develop a chain wide support system that enables communication, traceability and builds confidence from end-to-end in the chain. Project Partners: ACOS, Catholic Relief Services, Sustainable Food Lab Project Timeline: 2007-2011 Publications about this Project: Pea Beans In Ethiopia: Challenges of Creating New Business Models for Sustainable Livelihoods. Seville, Systems Thinker, Vol. 19, April 2008. Review of the role of commodity exchanges in supporting smallholder farmer market linkages and income benefits.Peter Robbins, July 2010. READ THE LATEST DEVELOPMENTS HERE |
