Publication database

This report presents findings and best practices from idh's innovating partners with regards to empowering farmers through service delivery, while generating sustainable returns to their businesses. Learn more about their models’ drivers of farmer resilience, cost reduction and financial sustainability.  And get inspired, by service models helping millions of smallholder farmers out of poverty, in often remote areas and developing economies around the globe.

Contract farming (CF) agreements are presently being restructured to form part of more complex Inclusive Business (IB) set-ups. Additional instruments, alongside CF, are implemented to overcome the challenges of CF and to adapt to the policy environment in which the different stakeholders operate. This paper develops a theoretical framework that gives insight into how these complex entities are structured and operate in a developing country context. It finds that a high dependence by the offtaker in the first case study stimulates a higher level of commitment and investment by this stakeholder in the contract arrangement. In turn, this increases the asset specificity aspect, which then requires safeguards to ensure the smallholders adhere to the contractual agreement. A higher dependency in this particular study also resulted in a higher number of smallholders being engaged in the contract, requiring mechanisms to efficiently monitor and coordinate them.

Inclusive business is hailed as a win-win scenario for the development of smallholder farmers and poor communities; yet there is little insight into how these inclusive businesses work and, more importantly, for whom. This book aims for a thorough understanding of the range of inclusive businesses in agriculture by examining: the structures they implement, the actors involved, and whether they are effectively inclusive of smallholders. By offering a critical assessment of inclusive businesses overall, it allows for a better perception of what works where, and under which conditions. It provides useful insights that will benefit smallholders, agri-businesses, support groups, policy makers and investors who are willing to promote more inclusive businesses, that foster a better integration of smallholders into commercial value-chains and a more equitable and sustainable agricultural sector.

This paper is part of a series of papers on inclusive agribusiness written for the “Towards a Global Research and Learning Agenda for Inclusive Agribusiness” workshop in March 2017. This issue focuses on understanding and influencing enabling policies for Inclusive agribusiness (IAB). Despite the large number of IAB initiatives, little has been done in terms of meta-analysis regarding enabling and constraining policy factors and cross country comparison. A key issue is not just the policy settings, but also the processes and platforms by which business, policy and other actors engage to transparently work on improved enabling conditions. A knowledge and learning agenda would consequently need to look at both substantive policy issues and processes.

This report contains four case studies on how some of the largest and most influential food and beverage companies and agribusinesses approach inclusive business: The Coca-Cola Company, The Kellogg Company, SABMiller/AB Inbev, and Syngenta.

This report provides analysis and key findings on the set-up and implementation of the mAgri mNutrion Initiative by GSMA. It provides insights to the design and impact of the services, with key considerations for existing service providers or those launching a new service. It also provide six case studies for a comprehensive snapshot of each service.

This publication outlines how the SDGs offer a compelling growth strategy for African business, pointing to an economic prize of at least US$1.1 trillion by 2030 for the African private sector and the potential to create 85 million new jobs. The report highlights opportunities in four sectors: food and agriculture, energy, health and cities.

The report identifies ownership and implementation models of digital solutions, and highlights pathways to extend digitisation beyond payments. Some of the key questions that are addressed in this publication are: What is the agricultural last mile and why is it important to digitise it? Why should we concentrate efforts on formal agricultural value chains? What are the benefits of digitisation to farmers and agribusinesses?

This brief on data looks at Agricare, a Ghanaian-owned animal feed producer. The publication shares practical guidance on how to use customer centricity to meet data collection needs for both business and social performance measurement. Researchers applied the Lean Data approach, to show that at its core, learning about impact is grounded in a simple activity: listening to open and unbiased feedback from customers.

This case study looks at a proof of concept for modernising the traditional small farmer system and bringing it into the supply chain of a larger company, through an organisational model that is both commercially viable and sustainable.