News & Insights

The past four weeks we had a temporary colleague from Mars working at our headoffice. Mars Incorporated is one of world's leading food manufacturers known for its chocolates, candy and pet care products. VECO works together with Mars in a joint cocoa program in Indonesia.

On June 9th we left for Amsterdam to attend the World Cocoa Conference, a 4-day conference on the future and sustainability of the cocoa sector. More than 1400 participants attended, coming from 55 countries worldwide, representing all stakeholders in the value chain: governments of producing and consuming countries, cocoa processors (Mars, Cargill, Callebaut,….), traders (ADM, ECOM,…), cocoa farmers, chocolate makers, civil society actors, journalists …

Rice is a new crop for West-Africa. Twenty years ago rice was consumed only on Sunday and special occasions. Now rice is the most important cereal in the region, and the consumption is expected to double by the year 2050. This means a huge potential income for smallholder rice farmers who have the potential to produce these large quantities – even if there is a long way to go. Today 40% of rice consumption is imported – mainly from Asia.

On May 13, more than 100 professionals from the out of home sector gathered at the networking event Your Choice. Your Choice aims to bring suppliers on the one hand and bulk consumers on the other hand together in order to get to know each other and exchange on the theme of sustainable food.

As a build up to the Your Choice networking event Vredeseilanden organized a round-table conference with contract caterers. The subject: “How can contract caterers contribute to improved sustainability performance in social catering?” The introduction was given by Saartje Boutsen of Vredeseilanden.

The Okualas village, in the Tinombo subdistrict of Parigi Moutong district, in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia lies in the mountains, around 500 - 1,800 metres above sea level. The tortuous, winding road to the village is extremely taxing. And the road surface is badly damaged too. Nevertheless, cocoa producers are able to sell their cocoa, through a long supply chain.

The debate on GMO’s in the media is sometimes heavy, with researchers and seed companies arguing that GMO’s offer an essential answer to the many challenges faced by agriculture today. Feeding 9 billion mouths by 2050 will not be possible without the use of Genetically Modified Organisms, is their statement. Opponents argue that GMO’s are an environmental disaster and that patents are a noose around the neck of farmers worldwide.

Katharina Beelen coordinates the sustainable consumption and catering program of VECO in Belgium. With this program, VECO wants to accompany kitchens and mass catering in the public and private sector towards a more sustainable approach. The activities are mainly pursued in Belgium, but they link up to initiatives abroad and contain interesting lessons worth sharing.

The Talang Kemuning village in Kerinci, Jambi, Indonesia is like a meat ball in a bowl. The village is located in the middle of a “natural bowl” formed by the hills surrounding it. There are hills with names as Pematang Panjang, Bukit Sungai, Sungai Kering, Bukit, Pulau Lebar, ... They all stretch out like a circle around the village. This particular shape makes the hills look like a natural fortress. It contains a natural treasury where the farmers' income comes from: cinnamon trees.

Imam Suharto, program director of VECO Indonesia has co-authored an article in the Global Environmental Change Journal on climate change adaptation.

The Congolese producers in the border areas of the East of Congo are at the mercy of illicit buyers and quality is not remunerated. So it is no surprise at all that the official Congolese coffee export plummeted from the historical record export of over 130,000 metric tons in the mid-eighties down to only a little over 6% of this today. The revival of the Congolese coffee sector starts with the reconstruction of the farmers’ capacity to produce top quality coffee and their ability to connect to the world market.

In their recent report 'Food Tank by numbers', the Food Think Tank highlights new research showing how family farms can nourish the world while protecting the environment. One of the success stories highligted in this report is the Boyolali organic rice program by the members of APPOLI, a farmer organisation supported by VECO Indonesia.

On the 17th of February Sabine Denis, manager of Business & Society, presented a new book to a large audience at the Federation of Enterprises in Belgium. The book is based on some thirty in-depth interviews with captains of industry.

On February 12 and 13, around 60 companies, NGOs, academics and experts from every corner of the world met in a workshop in Amsterdam. They considered the question on how we can achieve better long-term involvement of small-scale producers in commercial, modern markets. Vredeseilanden was there also. We shared our experience about cooperating with Colruyt and learned a lot on how companies envision the challenge to buy from small-scale farmers.

Horticulture is a promising agricultural sector in Honduras, concentrated in 4 areas, of which Intibucá is an important one. VECO supports the Lenca farmers in Intibucá, poor and historically marginalized, to improve their standard of living and their food security. VECO wants a better deal for these indigenous smallholder farmers, through a sustainable fresh vegetables chain.

VECO is active in Yen Lap district, Phu Tho province, where tea is a major crop, often accounting for over 40% of family income. Chain development is seen as an approach which can improve the quality of the tea by developing strong market linkages and collective actions, resulting in a better income for farmers.

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.