News & Insights

The 9th WTO conference started this week in Bali, Indonesia. Development and farmer organizations are worried that the industrialized countries will not take into account the interests of developing countries, and that trade rules will overrule food security. VECO’s advocacy officer in Indonesia, Adil Mareta, attended one of the civil society side events of the summit.

Vredeseilanden went with a number of business people, politicians and opinion makers to visit producers in Senegal. The group got to know banana and sesame producers and reflected and debated together with them about answers we can provide to the challenges that small-scale producers in developing countries are facing. How can they obtain a place and a fair income in modern food chains? And which role can the businesses, government, farmers’ organizations and education play?

On September 19 we at Vredeseilanden actually had a media figure as a guest: Bram Govaerts, bio-engineer and clever person with CYMMIT in Mexico: the international Maize and Wheat Improvement Center. The Flemish press briefly swarmed towards him when Bill Gates and Carlos Slim co-invested in the “MasAgro” initiative. You may have read about their work on seed improvement. However, after our session we can safely state that the really pioneering aspect of MasAgro was not in the papers. So you will have to read it here.

Following the example of fair trade with the South, can we also apply the fair trade principles in Belgium? That was what we – representatives of NGOs and of the different links in the (organic) food chain - reflected on, freely and frankly, at Johan Broekx’ dairy farm. The inspiration came from the fair organic milk Biodia, which guarantees a fair income to the farmer thanks to a unique price calculation.

From 10 till 20th June, the presidents and some technicians from our partner organizations PNOPPA (national farmer organization of Benin) and CTOP (national farmer organization of Togo) were in Brussels to meet up with the European Commission and to participate in the EU-ACP Joint Parliamentary Assembly (JPA), which took place from 15 till 19 June in the European parliament.

The Vredeseilanden vision states that smallholder farmers will be able to feed the 9 billion people by 2050, that they can work themselves out of poverty by doing so, and that they can do so without putting too much pressure on the earth.

VECO chose two cases (tea Vietnam and banana chips Ecuador) for a pilot project to explore the use and usefulness of Sensemaker to measure, learn and communicate about smallholder farmer inclusion in modern markets.

“Innovation is a process of turning an opportunity into new ideas and of putting these into widely used practice”. When it comes to new ideas in the development of sustainable value chains, the Vredeseilanden Innovation Fund was created a couple of years ago. The Fund is meant to encourage innovative approaches and activities of our staff or partner organisations.

Colruyt and VECO have engaged in a long-term collaboration to create sustainable agricultural chains, with a focus on the ‘inclusion of smallholder farmers’. A first product they worked with was rice from Benin. Now, asparagus from Peru was chosen for a new pilot that focuses on inclusive modern markets.

Rice is one of the world’s most important food crops, bringing income to millions of small scale farmers, and food to the table. As consumer awareness grows, the demand for certified organic and thus healthy rice is increasing worldwide. In Indonesia as well this presents great business opportunities for farmers.

For the Vietnamese, vegetables are an important part of their diet. Every meal is served with at least two or three kinds of vegetable. In 2002 alone, consumption of vegetables in Vietnam was 80 kg per capita. To meet this high demand, farmers use a wide range of techniques, like fertilizer and pesticide, to produce vegetables.

80% of all globally consumed cassia (or cinnamon) is produced in Kerinci, West-Sumatra, Indonesia. At the time being, however, this cassia is not processed in Kerinci. The raw material is sold to traders in Padang, who sell it on to processors in Jakarta, Europe or the US. Those then sell it to the end-users. As a consequence no added value remains in the area where the cinnamon was produced. The price for cassia is extremely low, and many farmers give up on cultivating cassia.

These days, little positive news reaches us from Eastern Congo through the media. Maybe we can have a try then? Is it even appropriate to tell the story of the people in Kivu for whom life simply continues? Is it appropriate to talk about the farmer organizations and traders that try to shape their future? Or is all of that merely silly optimism?

The Future of Agriculture is a global online policy discussion forum, by Oxfam International. Karen Janssen, advocacy specialist at Vredeseilanden wrote the following contribution.

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.