The vast majority of the over 5 million farmers from whom we source crops, such as cocoa, coffee, cotton, and cashew operate farms on just 1 or 2 hectares in countries such as Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Indonesia, Turkey and Honduras. Combined with the vagaries of weather, infrastructure, and global market pricing, many of them operate on a fine line between success and failure with little capacity to adapt, let alone grow.
Large-scale farmers, such as those from whom we source onions and garlic in the USA, also face challenges regarding climate change, water security and cost of production.
Training on Good Agricultural Practices and extension services for crop, fish, and poultry famers.
Access to finance, agri-inputs, climate-resilient seeds, and labour-saving tools and equipment.
Business management training and support for farmer collectives and cooperatives.
Access to market information systems.
Developing digital tools that can provide more tailored support, as well as create direct links to farmers so they can retain more value for their crop.
Developing AtSource – our revolutionary sustainable insights platform.
We report on the goals and targets in the Social Capital section of our Annual Report. Updates include:
In 2019, the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) highlighted in an award entry that Nigerian rice farmers indicated a preference for Olam Global Agri’s Rice business as the off-taker.
“In addition to Olam’s perceived trustworthiness, the farmers were drawn to Olam’s terms of engagement consisting of cashless credit, co-financing for extension services, provision of proximate collection/aggregation centres 15 km radius to production clusters.
Olam’s willingness to systematically engage with small-scale farmers and the flexible pricing mechanism that guarantees a fair minimum price are also very attractive elements of the deal to them.”
In 3 years, rice yields increased by 125% and thanks to improved storage facilities, post-harvest losses reduced by 70% and tripled farmers’ income. Further, 5,000 women reported improved quality of their diets, eating 3 meals per day against a baseline of 2 meals per day.
The programme is explained in more detail: Re-imagining the rice value chain in Nigeria
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