commodities Archives - Global Landscapes Forum

Rainforest Alliance Mission: People and Nature Thriving Together

kneditor — Wed, 04 Sep 2024 16:05:20 +0000

The Rainforest Alliance is creating a more sustainable world by using social and market forces to protect nature and improve the lives of farmers and forest communities. To achieve our mission, we partner with diverse allies around the world to drive positive change across global supply chains and in many of our most critically important natural landscapes.

Rainforest Alliance includes farmers and forest communities, companies, governments, civil society, and millions of individuals. Together we work to protect forests and biodiversity, take action on climate, and promote human rights and improve the livelihoods of rural people.

Their four main areas of work are all interconnected and have been designed to drive sustainability in the sectors and landscapes where we believe we can make the biggest difference for people and nature:

1. Certification: Provides a path toward more resilient and inclusive agricultural practices, with a focus on cocoa, coffee, tea, bananas, and other tropical commodities.

2. Landscape management: Develop and implement long-term conservation and community development programs in a number of critically important tropical landscapes.

3. Advocacy: Work with governments, companies, and civil society organizations to advance policies that support rural producers who invest in sustainability transformation.

4. Tailored supply chain services: Provide customized support to help companies define and achieve their sustainability commitments within certification and beyond.

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The Rainforest Alliance’s work in East Africa

kneditor — Thu, 29 Aug 2024 11:23:27 +0000

Rising temperatures, changes in precipitation, and other effects of climate change are undeniably affecting the ecosystems, biodiversity, and local communities in East Africa. The region has been subject to more frequent and intense rainfall events, floods, and droughts in recent decades, impacting the livelihoods of millions of people. With almost 70 percent of the economy in East Africa relying on agriculture, climate change effects have the potential to undermine or even reverse progress made toward improving the socio-economic well-being of the region’s inhabitants.

The Rainforest Alliance has been working with coffee and tea farmers in East Africa for more than 30 years to advance sustainable agriculture practices across vulnerable landscapes and watersheds. Rainforest Alliance’s vision for the region is to build and reinforce connections among farming communities, commodity companies, civil society organizations, and governments, and to promote sustainable production practices to benefit people and nature through an integrated landscape management approach.

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Tree Commodities And Resilient Green Economies in Africa

kneditor — Thu, 22 Aug 2024 13:59:12 +0000

The book Tree Commodities and Resilient Green Economies in Africa is about tree crop commodities in Africa and it sought to examine how best Tree commodities can contribute to achieving sustainable development goals in Africa.

It is premised on the fact that tree commodities (such as coffee, cocoa, cashew, oil palm, rubber etc.) represent some of the continent’s fastest-growing land uses. These commodities support the livelihoods of millions of people and constitute an essential part of African economies. At least five countries in Africa are single tree commodity-dependent economies; seven more economies can be considered tree commodity-dependent when more than one tree commodity is considered.

But tree commodity farmers remain poor because prices remain low, and most crops are exported as raw materials or with little processing. As such, African countries capture very little of the total value of the commodity value chains. For example, the continent produces 75% of the world’s cocoa, but captures less than 10% of the commodity’s total market value. Fluctuating prices pose serious balance of payment challenges for economies, too.

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FOLUR Spring Update 2024: Lessons from the Landscape

kneditor — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 14:41:31 +0000

Restoring Landscapes to Sustainably Feed the Planet

Food production drives climate change, deforestation, pollution, and biodiversity loss, contributing a third of global emissions. Unsustainable practices threaten key commodities like coffee, cocoa, and soy, worsening environmental degradation and rural poverty.

The FOLUR Impact Program, funded by the Global Environment Facility and led by the World Bank, reforms food systems and restores landscapes. Active in 27 countries since 2021, FOLUR promotes participatory approaches, involving local communities and Indigenous Peoples in resource management. The program uses tools like the Participatory Informed Landscape Approach (PILA) to connect projects with global knowledge and align with international regulations.

FOLUR aims for sustainable value chains by 2050, balancing high yields with conservation, and addressing the significant costs of food system inefficiencies estimated at $12.7 trillion by the FAO.

Download the spring update to learn more about FOLUR’s latest achievements.

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Company action in collective efforts for sustainable land use at scale

kneditor — Mon, 25 Mar 2024 14:57:25 +0000

About this report

This report summarizes findings and recommendations from a 15-month study initiated to advance understanding of the use of landscape and jurisdictional approaches as a key corporate strategy for downstream and midstream companies to achieve sustainable sourcing and have positive impacts in the regions they are sourcing from.

The study identified 113 companies supporting landscape and jurisdictional initiatives across 91 initiatives, in 19 countries. Recommendations have been drawn from the research for downstream and midstream companies to mobilize more private sector action.

Key recommendations for companies

Increase landscape-scale action and integrate it into corporate sustainability and business strategy
Invite and/or incentivize other private sector actors to take landscape-scale action
Spotlight multi-stakeholder collaboration to transition towards sustainable land use at scale
Align resources and efforts in committed and/or progressing landscape and jurisdictions.

The report contains three further recommendations for the wider community working with landscape and jurisdictional approaches. Using the results from the research, a business case is presented in the report for companies to see the opportunities and assist the transformation to sustainable commodity production through multi-stakeholder collaboration at scale.

This report is part of a global study that aims to understand how midstream and downstream companies have been using landscape and jurisdictional approaches to address commodity-driven deforestation. The study includes five commodity specific reports on cocoa, palm oil, pulp, paper and packaging, beef and soy landscape-scale action as well as this final summary report. The study also delves deeper into other possible uses of these approaches, in a report on meeting corporate climate, nature and people goals.

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Traceability and transparency in supply chains for agricultural and forest commodities

kneditor — Mon, 25 Mar 2024 14:27:24 +0000

A review of success factors and enabling conditions to improve resource use and reduce forest loss

Close to 90 percent of forest loss is associated with expansion of agriculture, resulting in an urgent need for better solutions to identify and help manage the risk of forest loss associated with commodity supply chains. Traceability and transparency are increasingly called on to help halt and reverse forest loss.

The Traceability and Transparency in Supply Chains for Agricultural and Forest Commodities Report shows that despite the rapid progress seen to date in developing traceability and transparency solutions, key challenges and data gaps remain. It also examines what is needed to ensure that initiatives, tools and policies are set up for success.

The report aims to inform collaborative action among governments, the private sector, and civil society organizations that are working toward enhancing traceability and transparency. It focuses on seven commodities: cattle, palm oil, soy, cocoa, timber, coffee, and rubber, but also offers insights applicable to other commodities.

Key Findings

Independent verification is necessary for traceability systems to be credible. Definitions need to be applied consistently.
Governments should provide an adequately resourced policy environment that facilitates traceability and transparency within the challenges of complex supply chains. Investments are rarely one-off since continued funding is usually needed. Approaches to traceability and transparency must consider the needs of smallholders to be effective.
Data gaps remain, especially where there is a large smallholder component, but equally important is ensuring that data are accessible and usable. Investments are needed to help close these gaps.
Despite gaps, there is enough existing data and information for supply chain actors to take meaningful steps toward assessing the risk of forest loss in supply chains, and to prioritize areas for action.

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FOLUR Annual Report 2023: Cultivating a Community for Sustainable Landscapes

kneditor — Thu, 07 Mar 2024 16:42:13 +0000

This annual progress report covers the period from July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023, providing an update on the Food Systems, Land Use and Restoration (FOLUR) Impact Program’s progress and achievements.

The emphasis during this period included strengthening community to accelerate fruitful knowledge exchange across country projects and disseminate insights into how best to initiate private and public sector action on value chains.

FOLUR is a powerful game-changer in the global arena, encouraging transformative government policies and private sector practices to support environmental restoration. This effort is urgent as supply chain vulnerabilities to risks from climate change on agriculture grow in tandem with a growing demand for food under pressure of population growth.

Download now for in-depth insights on key achievements, landscape restoration, program capacity strengthening, policy engagement, and more.

Discover the GLF-FOLUR Partnership for inclusive communication, knowledge-sharing, and to join the community of change-makers.

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RICE+ hub for regenerative ricescapes – Mission paper

kneditor — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 12:17:14 +0000

Scaling finance for sustainable rice landscapes

Given the unique opportunity for sustainable rice landscapes to deliver solutions for climate mitigation and adaptation, nature recovery, and improving farmer livelihoods while contributing to food and nutrition security, there is an urgent need to target finance and scale up actions in high-impact landscapes.

Key findings

The Mission paper provides information about the significant climate, nature and equity positive impact potentials, and emerging opportunities to scale private sector investments and collective action for sustainable rice. It also identifies the range of challenges that currently limits the acceleration of the rice sustainability transition at the scale needed, which include: customized support for rice farmers, transition costs and long-term agreements, sustainability target-setting guidance gaps, barriers to engaging in Voluntary Carbon Markets, and public and private sector investment gaps.

The objective of the RICE+ Hub for Regenerative Ricescapes Mission Paper is to serve as an action plan to facilitate pre-competitive private sector collective actions and investments across the entire rice value chain. These investments and collective actions will accelerate rice-related carbon, climate, nature and Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) investments and project implementation to scale sustainable rice in priority countries and landscapes, starting with a focus on the major rice-producing regions of South and Southeast Asia.

To accelerate the transition of rice production systems and landscapes to be equitable, regenerative and resilient, the RICE+ hub will focus on and facilitate 3 priority Action Areas through mobilizing our members and partners:

Forging public-private investment alliances
Promoting high-integrity rice carbon and sustainability standards
Expanding knowledge exchange and promoting innovations by the private sector across the rice value chain

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) launched the Mission paper for the RICE+ hub for regenerative ricescapes, in collaboration with member companies and partners, under the auspices of the Sustainable Rice Landscapes Initiative (SRLI). Link to other WBCSD related work:

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Low cost and easy to implement physical and hydrological soil assessment of shade-grown coffee in Santa Rosa, Guatemala

Global Landscapes Forum AR — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 11:46:16 +0000

Unlocking coffee agroecosystems secrets

This book explores the impact of coffee agroecosystems on soil hydrological functions, focusing on the potential benefits and challenges associated with land-use change. Utilizing low-cost methodologies like the Steady Simplified Beerkan Infiltration (SSBI) method and visual soil assessment (VSA), the study examines various land-use types in Guatemala. Key findings highlight the positive influence of shade trees on soil hydrological properties and the microclimatic benefits of leaf litter in seven-year-old shade-grown coffee. The book concludes with a recommendation for regular monitoring to understand the temporal variability in tropical land-use systems.

Key takeaways

Shade trees boost hydrological properties: Thirty-year-old shade-grown coffee (CN) exhibits the highest saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks) values, indicating that shade trees positively impact soil hydrological properties in coffee agroecosystems.
Microclimatic benefits of leaf litter: Seven-year-old shade-grown coffee (CP) demonstrates higher soil volumetric water content (VWC) and a significant positive effect of leaf litter on soil temperature, highlighting the positive impact of leaf litter on microclimatic conditions and soil moisture.
Effective low-cost methodologies: The Steady Simplified Beerkan Infiltration (SSBI) method, coupled with visual soil assessment (VSA), proves to be a cost-effective and easily implementable approach for assessing soil hydraulic and physical characteristics in various land-use types.

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Valentine Ebua from Liberia at FOLUR Partner Meeting Brazil

Global Landscapes Forum WT — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 16:04:23 +0000

About the FOLUR Annual Meeting

The FOLUR Impact Program brought together over 100 country projects and core partners in São Paulo, Brazil, to discuss topics surrounding land restoration and sustainable value chain implementation over the course of four days.

In this video, the GLF’s Eden Flaherty sits down with Valentine Ebua, Forest Lead, Africa Restoration Director, Conservation International.

Learn more about the FOLUR Impact Program

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