News & Insights

Coffee and cocoa are two of five largest export commodities in Indonesia after rubber, palm oil and coconut, putting them in the same top export product group prioritized by the Indonesian government for national development. The strategic role brings major impact for the national economy, involving 1.96 million families of smallholder coffee farmers and 2.18 million families of smallholder cocoa farmers.

Meat consumption by Vietnam’s 90 million strong population has been steadily increasing over the past ten years. From 20 kg of meat consumed per capita per year in 1999, the figure rose to nearly 50 kg per capita per year in 2009. This is more than the average for South East Asia and one of the fastest increases in the world.

“In East Africa, the market potential for small-scale agriculture is huge”

Paul Mbuthia works as a Value Chain Advisor for Vredeseilanden/VECO in East Africa. He is from Kenia and can rely on a rich experience. Time flies during a conversation with Paul. That has much, if not everything, to do with the sharp analyses he makes.

Two Belgian organizations are boosting Nicaragua's cocoa sector through the project "Yes, Youth Can", sponsored by Rikolto and Youca (Zuiddag), which also involved the cooperative La Campesina. It is expected to reach 300 young people in the municipalities of Matiguás and Río Blanco of Nicaragua in three years, including 120 young women.

The largest union of coffee cooperatives in Burundi has just opened its own processing plant inside the country. This has been made possible with Belgian funding, specifically an investment of 214,000 dollars by Kampani, an investment fund. This is the first investment for Kampani, which was set up last year by the King Baudouin Foundation, VECO/Vredeseilanden, Trias, Alterfin, SIDI, Louvain Cooperation, Boerenbond and other organisations.

The widespread comeback of gin-tonic illustrates the revival of gin. The launch of “1528” Cocoa gin, a unique premium based on cocoa is yet another illustration of this revival. But there is more. For each bottle sold, 50 eurocent will go to the different programs of VECO / Vredeseilanden supporting cocoa farmers.

How to cultivate the perfect tomato? How to define the specifications required for a vegetable producers’ organisation? How to ensure that producers actually follow them? What do they need to pay attention to in terms of quality standards of a product? These are only a few of the many questions the vegetable growers of the cooperative ECOVEGETALES in Sebaco, Nicaragua, wanted to ask their Belgian counterparts who visited them at the beginning of March.

Last year, VECO, The Shift, Fairtrade Belgium, FEVIA and Boerenbond brought together 300 professionals from the retail and food industry in Brussels to present a charter with 9 action points for increasing the sustainability of sourcing policies. As well as protecting the environment, viable prices for farmers are also a key focus. It is the first time for Belgium that such a coalition has been formed on this topic involving the entire food industry. The English version of this charter is now available.

From March 21 to 25, 2016, 30 students and professors of the careers of agronomy, mechanics, administration and ecotourism of the Polytechnic High School of Chimborazo (Escuela Superior Politécnica del Chimborazo, ESPOCH), participated in the training workshop for co-facilitators of the ‘Rural Training School for Agricultural Leaders’ in the city of Riobamba.

Both with our Inclusive Business Scan & the Youth in Agriculture Scan, VECO has fomented dialogue between stakeholders and partners, based on large-scale data as indexed by the respondents themselves.

In the week of February 8, 2016, a delegation of VECO Andino and VECO Head Office visited the Borderlands Coffee Programme of Catholic Relief Services (CRS) Colombia and Ecuador in Pasto, Colombia. Besides exchanging on both organisation’s value chain interventions with a focus on the export of specialty coffee, the mission’s objective was to discuss the different uses of SenseMaker as part of a planning, learning and accountability system.

On 31/01/2016, VECO Vietnam launched the Safe & Organic Food Finder platform and held a dialogue on the Participatory Guarantee System.

Exporting organic, fairtrade bananas from Tambacounda in Senegal to Belgium implies quite a number of challenges. We had an interesting interview on this topic with Leo Ghysels, Program Advisor sustainable chain development at Vredeseilanden / VECO.

VECO teamed up with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in Zambia to develop a common signification framework to grasp attitudes, perspectives and emergent patterns on youth involvement in the agri-business sector. Following the design of this framework, a first data collection took place in Peru, Ecuador and Nicaragua in December 2015.

VECO supports smallholder farmers to organize themselves and build the necessary capacities to create economies of scale, guarantee quality, food safety and sustainability. Developing strong business skills as a farmer organisation is key in becoming a strong business partner. Thanks to the collaboration with SCOPEinsight, VECO has engaged as a founding partner of the AMEA platform.

Rikolto initiated a training process with SCOPEinsight, a Dutch organisation that developed 2 tools to assess the business capacities of the farmer organisations. SCOPEinsight assesses the professionalism and management maturity of farmer organisations using its widely tested and robust assessments methodology, called SCOPE.

Despite a lot of challenges, some Indonesian farmers are producing premium quality commodities. They feed the world while maintaining sustainable practices.

With the “Let’s #SaveTheFoodture" campaign we challenge Belgian supermarkets. To look beyond low prices and to make sure sustainable food becomes an ordinary thing. We want quality food, produced with respect for the environment, that allows farmers a decent living …

On december 8th almost 400 participants attended the 'Foodture' event in 'Het Kaaitheater, Brussels. The afternoon program focused on sustainable sourcing, presenting inspiring cases by supermarkets, food companies and farmers.

On the first day of the Conference of Parties (COP) 21 in Paris, Belgium has been awarded the prize “Fossil of the Day” from environmental organizations. Because there was no agreement yet among the Flemish, Walloon and Brussels government on a common climate policy, the Belgium government failed to come up with a joint position at the start of COP 21. As an organization that supports small farmers in developing countries, VECO argues that COP21 is an opportunity to the country and all parties to join the effort to tackle climate change.

Since 2013 IKEA Food and Vredeseilanden act in close cooperation to make the food supply in IKEA’s branches more sustainable. The introduction of vegetarian balls, the supply of certified fish and shellfish, the reduction of food waste, a better cooperation with producers and providers… Those are only a few of the initiatives IKEA took to offer more sustainable food products.

Trac Van, 22 October 2015, 4:45 pm. It’s very busy on the field of the Trac Van Organic Vegetable Collaborative Group. The twenty women and one man who are part of the group are working the last hours of their day. I visited this same group exactly one year ago – and look at the difference.

From 26 to 27 October 2015, VECO organised a workshop with a dozen practitioners from development organisations, private companies and finance institutions from all over the world that have tested SenseMaker in the agricultural sector. They gathered at The Institute for Ireland in Europe in Leuven, Belgium.

On 25 and 26 September I had the unaccustomed honour of giving a presentation at the annual conference of APEN, the Association of Nicaraguan Exporters and Producers, on what we at Vredeseilanden/VECO mean by the phrase ‘inclusive business’. Why do we think it is so important for food companies to ensure that their business model includes small-scale or family farmers?

Humans make use of nature, and the earth provides free of charge. How can we help to reward our earth, which is inhabited by billions of people? By protecting it! For Bagus Sudibya and Gede Ngurah Wididana, the key to the continuity of their businesses is protecting the natural resources around them.

As you have already noticed we recently launched our new website. Why? Well time flies on the internet, new technologies come and go, and particularly the growing use of mobile devices created a need for this change.

The origin of the African Rice Exchange (ARE) dates back to 2014. In October, 4 farmer leaders of West Africa and 3 staff members of VECO participated in the International Rice Conference held in Bangkok and broadly exchanged with rice producers and actors in Thailand. This was such a fruitful experience that the return of the team gave birth to the idea of organizing an exchange visit at the level of Africa with this main thread: business models for rice processing and commercialization.

The City of Ghent partnered with 12 European cities in the Food Smart Cities for Development project, financed by the European Union. The project aims at fostering the role of cities in changing urban food production and consumption patterns by promoting inclusive, resilient and fair local food systems. The cities involved work on the further development of local food strategies. They are also drivers of a global Urban Food Policy Pact that will be signed in October 2015 by the major cities of the world.

In the week of October 8, 2015, VECO Indonesia organized several feedback moments to discuss the results of the story collection using SenseMaker technology in Polman district on Sulawesi island, Indonesia.

“We started one year ago with just 15 farmers, now we have over 200 members. The future looks bright, because now we are also starting negotiations with retailers like Nakumatt, Tusky’s, Shoprite, Urban Wholesalers,…", says Joseph Awala, chairman of the Kwapa Farmers Cooperative. “