What we can offer

Is your organisation struggling to implement sustainable production and processing practices, or to meet quality standards? Are you looking to strengthen your organisation’s business skills, and improve its access to markets, finance and inputs? Or are you exploring how to engage the next generation of farmers in your organisation?

Connect with Rikolto: our staff will be glad to join to create a tailored plan to address your specific needs. We can offer you in-depth local and international sector knowledge, strong assessment and business tools, and customised trainings ranging from quality control, youth involvement and business model development to technical assistance.

Rikolto has a strong track record in developing partnerships between producers’ organisations, wholesalers, banks and other stakeholders in food systems. The farmer organisations we work with, grow to become solid business partners who can make their voices heard in local, national and international sector networks. This will set you apart for potential financial and business partners.

Track record:

• Since 2016, over 3,180 Vietnamese tea farmers have been trained in sustainable land management practices. Their income has increased by an average of 30% due to reduced chemical use and higher prices for quality leaves.
• Rikolto initiated the revival of Eastern Congo’s Arabica coffee sector in a war-torn region. We organised over 5,000 coffee farmers into four cooperatives, which then launched 82 micro-washing stations with the support of Rikolto. Meanwhile coffee production and export increased to 380 tonnes in 2017. The cooperatives continue to win quality awards and gradually accumulated sufficient working capital to buy the coffee from the farmers at the start of the seasons. Farmers have at least doubled their income. However, challenges remain to maintain quality standards.
• In Central America, Rikolto has facilitated the creation of a Regional Cocoa Platform. Government representatives, private companies, farmers, researchers and support organisations from Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador jointly designed a vision and strategy for the region’s cocoa sector, focused on climate change. Ultimately, this will lead to increased knowledge and income for up to 5,000 cocoa farmers and their cooperatives.

Are you looking for trustworthy farmer organisations from whom to source your products? Are you seeking to make your supply chain future-proof and sustainable?

Reach out to Rikolto: making connections is at the heart of our work. We specialise in building bridges of trust and trade, that go beyond certification, between farmer organisations and the food industry. We pride ourselves on our ability to strengthen the capacity of producers’ organisations to reliably respond to market demands, in terms of quality, food safety, sustainability and quantity. Together with research institutions and commercial entities, we collaborate to design innovative methods to improve the inclusivity of value chains, creating win-win relationships for your company and the farmers’ organisations involved.

Track Record:

• In Vietnam, Rikolto has facilitated initial agreements between Phoenix Group, one of the world’s leading rice trading corporations, and two farmer cooperatives in the Mekong Delta, to directly buy their rice, which is produced according to the Sustainable Rice Platform (SRP) Standard. As part of the agreement, Phoenix invests in processing infrastructure, allowing their partner cooperatives to reduce the processing cost of their rice, and thus increase their final profit; while Phoenix has guaranteed access to higher-quality rice.
• The Belgian retail group Colruyt Group approached Rikolto 14 years ago to jointly improve sustainability in its value chains. Over the course of this long-term collaborative partnership, we have set up several value chains (including coffee, passion fruit, rice, bananas and cocoa), with the aim of applying the lessons learned to make retailers’ sourcing policies more sustainable.
• In Honduras, Subway sandwiches have never been tastier: the sandwich chain is assured a stable supply of high-quality vegetables, produced according to Good Agricultural Practices. El Consorcio Agrocomercial, a consortium of 8 farmer cooperatives, now operates with much greater business acumen in its negotiations, thanks to Rikolto’s support in strengthening collective marketing.
• Rikolto created the Inclusive Business Scan, a method based on Sensemaker® and designed to reveal crucial insights into the inclusion of smallholders in agricultural value chains. Rikolto collected large-scale micro-narratives from over 2,000 smallholders, interpreted by the respondents themselves, thereby reducing researcher interpretation bias.
• In Indonesia, 7,500 farmers benefit from a novel inclusive business model with MARS, brokered and co-created by Rikolto. In 2014, MARS agreed to train the farmers in product certification and quality assurance, facilitate their access to credit and pay a premium upfront for their pre-certified cocoa beans. MARS is replicating this inclusive business model with many other cocoa-producing organisations in other countries.

Are you seeking to invest in smallholder farmers’ organisations, but is it challenging for you to identify bankable opportunities in the agricultural sector?

Consider partnering with Rikolto: with a 40-year track record of working directly with smallholder farmers’ organisations across three continents, we can provide access to and understanding of bankable producers’ organisations. Our regional staff are trained in the use of SCOPE, a tool designed to assess the performance of producers’ organisations. The SCOPE profiles we provide can help you to assess and identify bankable opportunities and expand your pipeline quickly and cost-effectively. To mitigate risk, we provide post-deal technical assistance. Our customised hands-on capacity-building support can range from financial management and strategic planning to marketing and communication.

Track Record:

• As of August 2016, more than 100 farmers’ organisations that partner with Rikolto have been assessed, using the SCOPE Pro or SCOPE Basic tools. The assessments offer comprehensive insights into the business performance of these organisations. A dashboard provides an accessible analysis and benchmarks the results to target capacity building on the lowest-scoring aspects.
• In Flores, Indonesia, Rikolto brokered a Memorandum of Understanding between the bank of the province of East Nusa Tenggara and several local stakeholders in the coffee value chain. The Memorandum was a business milestone for the coffee farmers’ organisations of Flores. Since then, repayment of credit is linked with the coffee harvest. The farmer organisations also gained many other capital, market information, technology and fair-pricing advantages.
• Farmers under TAABU Integrated Cooperative Society Ltd in Eastern Uganda accessed a two year, UgX 50 Million (about $14,000) loan from the Microfinance Support Centre. The financing follows an April 2018 Memorandum of Understanding between TAABU and Grow More Seeds, a certified seed distribution and sales company for the latter to supply quality seeds and other inputs on credit to the farmers and in turn purchase the produce at a better price.
• Rikolto co-initiated Kampani, a new Belgian social investment fund, which focuses on encouraging entrepreneurship in agriculture. Alterfin carried out the due diligence. Rikolto is also co-founder and shareholder of Alterfin, an investor in micro-finance and producers’ organisations.