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Oct312016

Moving the Needle: Critical Success Factors for Scaling Innovation in Asset Finance for Small and Growing Agribusinesses

Presenting the report Moving the Needle: Critical Success Factors for Scaling Asset Finance A new report by Epven, with support from the Shell Foundation and the Small Foundation, explores the challenges and emerging solutions to scaling asset finance options for small and growing agribusinesses (SGBs) in developing countries. The investment opportunity in agribusiness…

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Sep132016

Water Smart Agriculture: A requirement for resilient farms and supply chains

The CEO Water Mandate couldn’t have stated it more clearly: “Water poses one of the most vital sustainable development challenges of our time.” Increasing pressures on water reserves and the effects of climate change underline the need for the food and beverage industry, along with public sector donors and governments, to prioritize practical solutions to…

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Aug252016

Oats and cover crops: long-term benefits but collaboration is needed to share costs

Many Midwestern farmers remember oats as a part of their grandparents’ farm, a thing of the past. Corn and soybeans (or 2-crop rotation) now accounts for 95 percent of Iowa’s crop acres. This is slowly changing and oats, with a little help, are making their way back into modern farm crop rotation, bringing with them…

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Jul122016

The Business of Landscapes

Are landscape approaches the next big thing or a passing fad? The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) , The Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH), International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and EcoAgriculture Partners are all part of landscape initiatives sprouting up to promote, learn and encourage companies to get involved. But what’s in…

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Apr222016

Towards a Shared Approach for Smallholder Performance Measurement: Common Indicators and Metrics

This paper presents an aligned yet customizable framework of indicators for measuring farm-level sustainability in smallholder agricultural supply chains. These indicators are proposed primarily in the context of performance measurement, but can also be useful for more in-depth impact evaluation studies. The proposal is not for one single common set of indicators, but rather for…

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Apr222016

A Practitioners Guide to Developing a Performance Measurement Approach

Small-‐scale farmers—whose output supports a population of roughly 2.2 billion people worldwide—manage roughly 85% of the world’s farms. And every day, companies trade with these farmers in a wide variety of products. As companies seeks more transparency through complex supply chains and invest together with development and financial organizations, there is more and more interest…

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Apr222016

Assessing the Sustainability of Smallholder Sugar in Paraguay

In 2012-2013, Food Lab company members of the Values Based Sourcing group supported a study on smallholder sugar in Paraguay to to pilot a performance measurement methodology while collecting data to assess the sustainability of smallholder sugarcane production there. This study was supported by Annie’s, Ben & Jerry’s, Clif Bar, The Body Shop and the Ford…

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Apr72016

System Leadership in Action

Over the coming year Sustainable Food Lab will be collecting and sharing stories of system leadership by individuals and organizations. In a Stanford Social Innovation Review article, Peter Senge, Hal Hamilton, and John Kania describe system leadership as the capacity to catalyze collective leadership. This is a different type of leadership than that of John Wayne…

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Mar142016

Barriers and Opportunities: The Challenge of Organic Grain Production in the Northeast, Midwest and Northern Great Plains

Organic grain supply is an identified bottleneck for value-added processes. Growth in grain production lags other organic commodities and remains a negligible amount of total U.S. cropland. An informal group of companies commissioned the Sustainable Food Lab to give them thorough background on barriers and challenges to organic grain production before acting to address the…

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Mar112016

Climate smart cocoa picks up steam in Ghana

A cross-section of more than 50 people representing the Ghana cocoa sector came together March 9 in Accra to review the advances of the Climate Smart Value Chain project being implemented by CIAT, IITA, Rainforest Alliance, Root Capital and the Sustainable Food Lab. This workshop builds on a kick-off workshop held in May 2015, field visits and joint work combining soil mapping with climate…

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