Chapter 3: Strategic partnerships
Annual report 2023
You could call them the ‘willing’, the partners in chapter 2. Which leaves you with… well, the unwilling. Enter our activist roots. As we observe change still going much too slow, we partner up with other NGOs, CSOs, lobby organisations and governments to push for structural change.
We now have
partnerships, with the Dutch and German government, and organisations like Heifer America, Solidaridad, and the Rainforest Alliance, besides the companies of which some were mentioned in the previous chapter
Heifer
In 2023, our commitment to catalyse grassroots change gained a significant boost. Heifer Labs, Heifer Americas and Fairfood joined forces to develop a Living Income Pricing Methodology—an open-source Living Income Pricing Tool designed to enhance cooperatives’ bargaining power and establish a living income price at the farmgate. To kick-start this project, we involved our partners in Honduras to define what cooperatives and buyers need to determine fair prices for agricultural products, taking into account production costs and ensuring farmers receive sustainable living incomes. Expect good news!
RECLAIM Sustainability!
This programme is funded by the Dutch ministry of Foreign Affairs, and it allows us to join forces with the NGOs Solidaridad, Trust Africa, and Business Watch Indonesia. Between our shared knowledge, skills and tools, we are all set to work towards our true mission: genuine sustainability in agri-food supply chains, and enabling the people who produce our food to earn a living income and have a voice in the decision-making process. (You can read more about this programme here.)
“Farmers are rational actors who will engage when requirements bring actual returns. The value of data lies in its potential to improve production and enhance farmers’ lives. As the coffee industry transitions to digitisation, focusing on the tangible benefits and outcomes for farmers ensures active engagement in solving supply chain challenges.” Derrick Komwangi from The Ankole Coffee Producers Cooperative Union.
Cisco
Since our collaboration sprouted back in 2021, Fairfood and Cisco have shared a common goal: to empower farmers and food workers while ensuring fair wages and ethical practices throughout the supply chain. It’s a mission rooted in the belief that traceability, transparency, and data quality are not just buzzwords, but essential tools for building a better future. Thanks to Cisco’s unwavering support, we were able to further develop and strengthen Trace, our platform that provides end-to-end visibility in the food supply chain. With Trace, we do not only track products but also empower stakeholders by providing valuable insights to drive ethical business practices.
One milestone that we reached together in 2023, was open sourcing Trace. This may not mean much to the not-so-techy among us, but let’s just say that open sourcing a solution’s code means the whole world can now inspect, modify, and enhance that code. This is an important condition under Fairfood’s value of transparency – sharing the lessons we learn along the way, so others may use them to their advantage.
“Farmers are happy with both the Farmer Cards and the Data Premium that comes with them. Buyers, at first weary of possible extra effort, have reported that it greatly improves their efficiency and relationship with the farmers. Brands and consumers are happy to learn more about the people behind their products.” Our tech architect Derek Hardwick about our Farmer Cards, which we were able to develop with support of Cisco. Read more here.
Dream Fund
A rather generous fund provided by the Dutch Postcode Lottery (12,7 million euros!) allowed Fairfood, Solidaridad, Cool Farm Alliance, &ranj, and Rabobank to work on a rather ambitious, wonderful dream: to empower farmers to become climate heroes instead of climate victims. Ultimately, we want farmers to be able to tap into the carbon offset market, using their farm to plant trees that capture CO2, and be able to sell so-called carbon credits to companies looking to offset their emissions.
GIZ
After initially embarking on a partnership to give life to our ALIGN platform, Fairfood and GIZ continued the work towards fair food under the aforementioned project aGROWforests. GIZ stands as the funding partner in this project which, in turn, helps us deepen our partnership with Verstegen as we tackle supply chain after supply chain until all their spices and sauces are sustainable and fair. As such, the German service provider is a valued strategic partner who creates a flywheel effect to our work that is essential if we are to make our mission reality.
Check out this video on the aGROWforests project:
Multi-Stakeholder Platforms
DISCO
DISCO (Dutch Initiative on Susainable Cocoa) is the much-needed public-private platform that unites different cocoa stakeholders in a shared mission to end deforestation and child labour in cocoa supply chains, and pay farmers a living income. It is part of a bigger European network which, for example, contains FRISCO (French) and SWISCO (Swiss). Fairfood joined the Dutch initiative to contribute knowledge on transparency, traceability, and living income. To learn more, check out DISCO’s annual report 2022.
MVO PLATFORM
What a year it was, especially if we’re talking politics. The EU was getting ready for the deforestation act, and talks on the due diligence regulation fiercely continued (which was expected to pass early 2024, but didn’t). In the Netherlands, where Fairfood is based, we were lobbying for a law for corporate social responsibility, together with lobby organisation MVO Platform. The concept law saw a lot of backlash, but none of that mattered once the Dutch government collapsed and the entire process hit pause. What’s more, as the Dutch voters took to the ballot boxes in November, we saw the rise of the far-right party PVV, putting development cooperation budgets at risk. MVO Platform tirelessly continues its work, and we are proud to contribute.
IDVO
As a coalition of companies, academics, religious bodies, trade unions, and civil society organisations, IDVO (Initiative for Sustainable and Responsible Business) campaigns for Dutch laws that force companies to act on human rights and sustainability in their supply chains. The initiative feels such laws at a national level can help push more ambitious sustainability legislation on EU level. Fairfood is one of over 130 signatories, and as such supports campaigns, position papers, and other strategic content.
