News & Insights

Youth is a driving force that could lead the agricultural transformation in Ghana’s cocoa farming communities and contribute to the reduction of unemployment in Tanzania. Our #YouthinAg ambassadors Yvonne and Hilda hosted a café session during the #ANDE Annual Conference sharing their insights of working with young farmers and entrepreneurs buzzing with fresh and innovative ideas. Time has come for young people to sit in the driver’s seat.

Central Java, Indonesia. By implementing demonstration plots, we encourage farmers to take ownership of new sustainable agricultural techniques. By training farmers to become trainers, we empower them to pass their knowledge down to others. And by -promoting the adoption of the SRP standard at government level, we aim to upscale our impact.

Already signed by close to 100 local authorities, the Glasgow Food & Climate Declaration is a commitment to tackle the climate emergency through integrated food policies. Rikolto is proud to have been a strong supporter of the Declaration from the beginning. During the #COP26, Rikolto will participate in the global "Fork to Farm" dialogue bringing together over 100 farmers and representatives of cities to encourage a mutual understanding of their challenges. We will also host a session with RUAF during the Recipes for Resilience event on how cities are leveraging their food policies in practice to tackle the climate crisis.

On 21 September 2021, the Vinh Phuc Provincial Department of Plantation and Plant Protection held a conference to announce the publication of the Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) for safe vegetable application guidelines.

When Madeleine Delma, a 25-year-old agronomy student from Ouagadougou, spotted the Generation Food: Call for Young Entrepreneurs in Agribusiness online, she did not hesitate to apply. “I have always been fascinated by food processing.” She wanted to create a tomato sauce.

In a context of economic instability and climate change, improving agricultural competitiveness is the responsibility of more than 2,439,162 rural young people in Peru. In the last 4 years, Rikolto, in collaboration with partners, has generated a cycle of annual forums with 182 young producer leaders participating. Read the reflections of our colleague Lith Montes, coordinator of projects with young people in the coffee sector.

Our rice experts, John Ereng and Djalou Franco, took part in the AGRF 2021 conference to give their insights into Rikolto’s experience with introducing the SRP standard in East Africa, specifically referring to evidence from a project in Iringa, Tanzania (2019-2021). Watch the video!

Patricia Arce, project coordinator in Honduras, shares five lessons she has learned in piloting hydroponic systems for vegetable production with small-scale producers.

How to ensure that the quality and value of the product is assured from the farm to the table? On 31 August, more than 100 representatives of producers’ organisations, government agencies, food quality certification bodies and consumers attended the workshop titled "Building Value - From Quality Standards to Consumer Trust”.

Coomsempoda, a group of 114 farming families, had been badly affected by the pandemic and by the increasingly severe consequences of climate change. Despite this, in 2020, they obtained a loan from the Belgian social impact organisation Kampani. Thanks to their new washing and drying machine, they will increase the number of products offered as well as their safety!

In this new episode of Rikolto's podcast, in 7 minutes you will learn what agroforestry systems are all about, why their application in cocoa production could contribute to reducing the impact on the environment, and the effects suffered by cocoa-producing families due to climate change.

How efficiently does Rikolto deliver its results? We conducted 5 efficiency analyses to determine the social, economic and environmental return of each Euro invested in Rikolto projects. Read the key findings here.

Chocoben is an Ecuadorian company with more than 20 years experience producing and marketing of cocoa beans. After successfully completing an intensive training programme, Chocoben obtained their first loan to support cocoa enterprises from the credit cooperative Jardín Azuayo. Find out how Chocoben has used this opportunity.

Smallholders’ farmers earned a higher income using a quality assurance system in comparison with non-certified vegetables in Ha Nam, a province in northern Vietnam. A manual on how to set up a Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) for vegetable farmers was launched in July 2021.

We are pleased to announce that Rikolto has recently joined the RUAF Global Partnership, a leading consortium of experts working on sustainable urban agriculture and food systems.

In Rancho Grande, Nicaragua, we look at the cup of coffee with a positive environmental, economic, and social impact for the families of coffee producers thanks to the win-win relationship promoted by Rikolto and the company Exportadora Atlantic S. A. (Expasa).

In this second episode of Rikolto´s podcast, Abdulahi Aliyu, coordinator of Rikolto´s global cocoa programme explains the concept of Living Income in the cocoa value chain and the complex factors that need to be in place to produce a chocolate bar that is delicious and good for the people and the planet.

Meet Rikolto's #YouthinAg experts: some of them are young in age, others young of mind, and all of them with a passion to invest in the untapped potential of young farmers and entrepreneurs.

Young entrepreneurship is giving hope to the future of Vietnamese agriculture. Nghia's success is no accident but a story of passion and persistence. Discover his journey!

Karina Lopez grew up as the daughter of coffee farmers in Ibarra, Ecuador. Like many young people in her region, she didn't see much future in agriculture or the product her family grows. Meet her story and how she´s making the world a better place with coffee.

Bartolomé and other young indigenous Panamanians from the region Ngäbe-Buglé have taken up cocoa cultivation with their families using agroforestry systems (SAF) to protect the environment in their community in the face of increasing extensive cattle ranching. Read more about their story.

In this episode of the Rikolto podcast, Thibault, Victor, Hilda, and Chris join us from Leuven (Belgium) and Arusha (Tanzania) and tell us all about how young entrepreneurs are changing food systems.

To make the road from farm to fork shorter, East Africa Fruits eliminates middlemen. The company is currently working with around 5000 farmers to deliver produce to the markets in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania's biggest city.

In collaboration with the Women’s Initiative for Start-ups and Entrepreneurship (WISE) in Vietnam, Rikolto assembled more than 100 stakeholders from the food supply chain in Hanoi to exchange opportunities and challenges and address solutions towards building sustainable urban food systems. Discover more here!

Tenacity and resilience are words that describe Yamileth Torrez. At the age of 27, she is a survivor of Covid-19, the shocks of two hurricanes and losses to her income from cocoa production due to the effects of climate variability.

Four years ago, captivated by the flavours of cocoa and chocolate, members of the Youth Committee of the Peruvian farmer organisation Pangoa wanted to specialise in those areas. Today they can be recognised as tasters of cocoa paste and liquor. What impact did the certification have on the young people's professional lives, and what "quality" footprint does the new professionals leave in cooperatives like Pangoa? Find out more in this article.

On Wednesday, June 16th, 40 young people from all over the world met to talk about The True Cost Of Food during the dialogue organised by FoodUnfolded and Rikolto. Aäron De Fruyt, a former colleague, participated and shared his impressions in this blog.

This assignment concerns the provision of Assessment tools to assess agribusinesses and the training of Rikolto staff in the use of the tools as certified assessors.

Lith Montés has been with Rikolto for 4 years as national coordinator of coffee projects in Peru. She often reminds us "I work so that young people have opportunities that I fortunately had".

Young people are full of compelling and promising ideas to change the recipe of our food systems. This is the reason why for this #AfricanCITYFOODmonth campaign, Rikolto has decided to put young changemakers in the spotlight.