A recent report by the International Trade Centre (ITC) offers a glimpse into farming communities at the frontlines of the Covid-19 crisis, whose story largely has been in the shadows.
These farmers produce the food that sustains us and contribute to global food security. Meanwhile, they deal with challenges linked to a triple livelihood crisis triggered by climate change, volatile commodity prices and the Covid-19 global pandemic.
For most producers and businesses, pulling through the Covid-19 crisis is a matter of survival. Businesses and consumers alike are starting to think of long-term, ‘out of the box’ solutions to help producers make it through the crisis, recover and grow. These measures are important, strategic and urgent.
Interviews with farmer organisations across 11 countries. show how they are coping and what strategies are the most effective. Their experiences can be summed up in four broad recommendations:
Diversify to multiply: Climate-smart production
Producers who have set up integrated cropping systems with food crops, cash crops and agroforestry appreciate their value now more than ever. For smallholders, monoculture is often a gamble – a case of all or nothing. Reliance on a single buyer or income channel, combined with high crop vulnerability to pests and diseases, often leaves farmers with no alternative means to make money, should things go wrong.
Crop diversification means that, apart from cash crops for export, different crops can be harvested throughout the year. These goods can be consumed by the household or sold on national and local markets. A more diversified cropping system including forestry can also make it easier to adapt to climate change and mean better soil quality and productivity. This can be a lifesaver for farmers.
Diversification is an important mitigation tactic, If you produce some food crops as a diversification strategy, at least you have food in the house.But if you’re solely dependent on an export commodity, then you’re in a tight spot.
For some farmers, cultivating different crops could be the difference between success and failure,
For a cocoa producer in West Africa, it’s certainly a good strategy to diversify into food crops, because first and foremost, you can eat it yourself. Secondly, you have your very local markets or your national markets. But if you’re a worker in a highly specialised flower farm … your existence is gone.
Crop diversification also underpins national and individual self-sufficiency, Adding new crops can also increase seed availability and reduce reliance on imports.
Explore regional and domestic markets, too
Producers with options generate bigger returns, develop more income streams and find more commercial channels. ‘Diversify to multiply’ could be the new adage for producers’ marketing channels as well – both in times of crisis and generally speaking.
Faced with today’s curbs on movement, many farmers who export commodities are turning to the domestic market. They are selling excess produce locally to add value as they continue to export what they can.
In the Caribbean, producers are repositioning into short supply chains targeting local economies to fill gaps created by reduced imports.
The coronavirus and the continuous natural weather disasters have highlighted that past focus from both governments and development partners on developing export markets does not provide resilience. High-value, low-volume exports such as fresh produce depend on air freight, and with the complete shutdown of the tourism sector, air freight capacity has dropped significantly. If these are crops for which there is not high local-market demand, such as herbs, there are huge losses.
While Bench Maji Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union focuses on coffee, its members also produce honey and spices that are sold locally.
Respond to demand to enhance revenue
Branching out into certified products can also help farmers. Demand for organic and Fairtrade certified Bench Maji coffee and Banelino bananas has grown and profit margins have widened since the pandemic began, the two cooperatives said.
Kuapa Kokoo Cooperative Cocoa Farmers and Marketing Union sells both Fairtrade and UTZ Rainforest certified beans for export. But it also sells to Ghanaian cocoa processor and chocolate manufacturer Niche Cocoa for local value addition. Niche Cocoa managing director Edmund Poku says the commercial strategy of the company is ‘Chocolate made in Ghana, for Ghanaians’.
Countries that produce export commodities tend to rely heavily on a single cash crop. This, combined with low market prices and vulnerability to climate change, threatens the livelihood of their farmers.
Finished products add value
Modernising and adding value at the local level could help change this narrative by boosting the economy, raising incomes in the agricultural sector and creating employment. Cocoa-producing countries such as Ghana and coffee-producing countries like Ethiopia are starting to see the benefits of supplying finished goods – chocolate and roasted coffee for the domestic and regional markets.
Bench Maji Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union mainly exports green coffee, but is looking to add value by roasting specialty coffee beans as part of its five-year strategy. Nicaraguan farmer cooperative Prodecoop not only produces and sells green beans, but has its own value-added roasted brand ‘La Segoviana’, for domestic and regional consumption.
Coffee growers in many countries are increasingly looking to regional markets as a profitable outlet to add value. Governments are supporting their coffee farmers by developing enabling policies and investing in value addition and industrialisation.
Kuapa Kokoo Cooperative Cocoa Farmers and Marketing Union has gone one step further by responding to the Covid-19 crisis. The organisation is exploring investing in women farmer groups to produce soap and protective face masks for the local market. This investment supports the health and safety of its communities and helps diversify the income of cooperative members.
Seek alliances
Existing partnerships and new alliances can help producers tackle challenges and grow. Collaborating with other stakeholders is one way to alleviate some of the pressure of the costs of doing business.
Chocolats Halba’s Heid says the Swiss chocolate maker is trying to ease some of the pressure on its suppliers by continuing to pay them ‘even if certain projects do not meet compliance standards or do not fulfil certain objectives. This is what we can do to support them.
Company buyers and governments could help by investing in technology. While there are plenty of tech solutions to increase productivity, smallholder farmers generally can’t afford them.This is like a circle of poverty. Adaptive technology investments could break that circle by enabling farmers to scale up their productivity – and incomes and explore more opportunities, and many of them will be focused on organic.
Digitalise
Many restaurants and coffee shops have turned to delivery platforms and online sales to reach customers and carry on during the crisis. Farmers could do the same. Online marketplaces offer many opportunities for producers, especially now. With the Covid-19 outbreak, online channels such as Amazon are selling much more coffee which is consumed at household level. So demand for coffee in this segment today has grown.
Digitalisation is not just a tool to boost sales. Although using digital technologies has the potential to create new revenue streams, it also affects how work gets done through more efficient platforms such as mobile banking and digital data management. Digitalisation has the power to transform how customers and companies engage and interact – an undeniable asset as consumers and buyers increasingly seek a more direct relationship with producers.
#Knowyourfarmer: Responsible consumers respond
Producer associations can successfully close the gap with consumers and add value sustainably. Pachamama Coffee Cooperative, a 100% farmer-owned roaster and distributor based in California, connects more than 240,000 families directly to end-consumers. Thousands of family farmers from Ethiopia, Peru, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Mexico own and govern the cooperative.
Social media increasingly highlights the relationship between consumers and producers, as part of a broader movement towards more ethical consumerism. Trending hashtags, such as #whomademyclothes and #knowyourfarmer, illustrate consumer demand for transparency and fair conditions including adequate incomes, decent jobs and rewards based on value addition along supply chains.
Social media slogans such as ‘food for change’ and ‘food for good’ reflect a shift towards sustainable food value chains that nurture the consumer-producer relationship. In other words, people want assurances – and should get them – that the food they buy respects consumers, producers, the environment and society as a whole through high quality, care and ethics.
Sustainability is no longer just about protecting the environment. It concerns more than policymakers and big business buyers. It has become a rallying point for citizens interested in the welfare of one and all. Sustainability will be further refined in the coming decade as the Z generation and millennials enter into the active consumer space, and by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Time to take the initiative
The Covid-19 crisis has presented the world with an opportunity to grow through adversity. Now is the time for a reset, if ever there was one. Producer organisations are increasingly trying to get things done on their own and reaching out for support in areas they are unable to address. They want to be heard, to kindle action and to change the farmer narrative. Industry and government must respond to this call.
It’s time to collectively engage in a more mindful and sustainable way of operating – from consumer behaviour to trade, and from policymaking to the long-term thinking of producers. Could this crisis herald the age of the ‘new normal’?
The time for action is now. The testimonials in this report demonstrate that farmers are already moving. Others must follow suit.
Farmers will survive the Covid-19 pandemic because of their embedded resilience and a targeted emergency response. The strategy of safeguarding health, improving food security, sharing information and renegotiating finance is paying off.
To grow through adversity in the long term, however, producers need to engage actively in a strategic and urgent response, with some external support. The solutions include climate-smart, integrated production systems; diversified crops, markets and channels that explore domestic and regional value addition; stronger productive and commercial value chain alliances; and integration of adaptive technology and digitalisation to increase sales and efficiency.
