News & Insights

In this report, Saartje Boutsen (Vredeseilanden) and Jan Van de Poel (11.11.11) analyse the difficulties in access to credit for smallholder farmers and they give some policy recommendations for a new Belgian inclusive policy for supporting local private sector in developing countries.

Master thesis submitted to obtain the degree of Master of Cultures and Development Studies by Katrien Vandevelde. The author worked in the selected project during a period of 1 year in 2010 - 2011, based in Savalou, Benin, and worked in close contact with the farmer organisations involved in the Fairtrade pilot project on rice, both at village level and at the level of the community .

Chocolate factories and cocoa traders worldwide have become aware of the need to invest in making the cocoa sector more sustainable. Due to population growth, changing diets in emerging economies and the deterioration of the cocoa production systems, companies fear not to be able to source sufficient cocoa within the years to come.

Recently Vredeseilanden has become a member of the Sustainable Food Lab (SFL), a network that has the mission to accelerate the shift of sustainable food from niche to mainstream. More information can be found on their website.

Vredeseilanden (VECO) published a common position on the future CAP together with the environmental NGO’s and the development NGO’s. We advocate for remunerative prices for farmers. We consider this as beneficial for farmers and society in EU and no longer detrimental to farmers in the African region who suffer from unfair competition. We also ask more support for the implementation of agro-ecological principles. This will be necessary to get in line with the ecological capacity of our planet.

Ibrahim Ouédraogo, Responsible of VECO West Africa Dakar office, attended the RIO +20 summit as a member of the Senegalese civil society, more precisely in the Enda Third World delegation. We had a short interview with Ibrahim.

In 2011, we decided to embark on what came to be known as our ‘sustainability trajectory’. To this end, a vision was formulated, a ‘road show’ (series of motivational workshops) was staged at different locations worldwide to motivate personnel and partner organisations, screening tools were developed, and a Colloquium (‘The Farmer Effect‘) was organised.

Last week we wrote a letter to Minister Magnette, head of the Belgian delegation in Rio. The Minister replied to our letter, stressing that family farming is indeed crucial to combat hunger and poverty and that he wants to stress the social dimension in the debate on poverty and sustainability.

Plantain is one of Ecuador´s most traditional staples and is being exported widely: Ecuador is the 3th biggest exporter of plantain in the world. This video is an illustration of the case study report Pathways Towards Sustainability about plantain in Ecuador. It shows how smallholder farmers are included in the plantain chain and the improvements made on sustainability level. You can observe the activities of the different steps in the chain and watch interviews with all actors involved.

In Belgium, a new network with regard to sustainable agriculture and food is created: the New Food Frontier. It is, in a first stage, a network of 50 thinkers and doers. You will find them in the field and at the table, within agricultural, horticultural and food companies, in research groups, at universities, within government agencies, interest groups and soon in many more places too.

Over the last few years, various authors have come to the conclusion that development cooperation is not doing what we expect it to do. All over the world poverty looks as incurable as ever and Western aid has even led to a number of well-documented perversities. How did we get to this? And does it make any sense to continue providing aid? Vredeseilanden tries to provide some answers and also gives its view about the future road for development cooperation.

“Both high and low food prices result in winners and losers”, says professor Johan Swinnen in an article that was published in the scientific journal Science. He is of the opinion that development-aid organizations aren’t consistent. When food prices are low, they argue the fate of the farmers, when food prices are high, they argue the fate of the poor city dwellers who cannot buy food anymore. What is Vredeseilanden’s view on this? A few comments…

The International Supply Management Conference end of December 2011 in Amsterdam hosted about 1.200 participants; almost all of them buyers/purchasers from a variety of companies, private and public, CPO as they are called, Chief Procurement Officer, an executive responsible for supply management, a three letter word, just as the CMO (chief marketing officer) and the CEO (chief executive officer or the general manager).

After three days of the International Rice Workshop in Solo, on the island of Java in Indonesia, enegy remains high among participants. On Monday they have exchanged the situation of family farming and its engagement in rice chains in their respective regions, the nature and characteristics of these rice chains and the institutional environment in which these are situated.

Vredeseilanden/VECO started a rice programme in Benin in 2002 to boost the capacities of farmers and their organisations to produce high quality rice. The central goal is to increase farmers' incomes through improved cultivation and access to modern, dynamic markets.The programme has resulted in significant outcomes, including local self-sufficiency for households in the Collines, a 50% increase in per hectare productivity, professionalized farmers’ organisations that have developed the ability to export.

On Friday 14th of October Vredeseilanden and the University of Leuven organised a 'farmer effect' workshop on how different value chain actors within agricultural and food chains take initiatives towards sustainability on economic, social, cultural and ecological level and how farmers and their organizations respond to these initiatives.

VECO’s experience working in Sulawesi in partnership with the global cocoa trader Armajaro illustrates how partnering with the private sector can optimize our impact, improve smallholder farmers' livelihoods, and increase the likely sustainability of farmers' gains. A case study of NGO-private sector cooperation on Sulawesi island, Indonesia.