Smallholder regen agriculture and sustainable palm oil

SNV and Unilever aim to empower the next generation of smallholders farmers with a core focus on improving livelihoods through the establishment of smallholder hub. Through the hub, we hope to provide big opportunity for smallholders to increase and diversify their incomes; for mills to secure more consistent, higher quality supplies from more loyal farmers; for brands to achieve their vision and be able to promote and deliver on their values; and for the local and global populations to benefit from improved environmental performance of the palm oil supply chain.

We target to deliver services to over 40,000 smallholders across 7 locations in North Sumatera (Simalungun, Asahan, Labuhanbatu Selatan, Batubara, Deli Serdang, Tanuli Selatan, and Serdang Bedagai) in the period of 5 years in 2023-2028. 

Companies around the world have adopted voluntary agricultural certification as a mechanism of assurance to demonstrate that they do not have palm oil produced on recently deforested areas, or on recently drained and degraded peat lands in their supply chains. However, smallholders typically struggle to achieve this certification because they lack the (institutional) management capacity and capital to meet the complex requirements of these schemes, and the development and maintenance of internal control systems. As a result, sustainable agriculture standard is deemed to be hard to get in addition to sustainable certification that is rarely inclusive for smallholders. 

We set out our approach by valuing systems change, scaling up, and innovation. To scale-up our impact and to push for locally-led approach, we foster collaboration with local Civil Society Organisation (CSOs) from 7 districts in North Sumatera. Together, we establish smallholder hub to foster peer-to-peer learning, improve access to information, and improve access to fund for regenerative agriculture practice. Moreover, on daily basis we give capacity building for farmers includes empowering women’s farmer to ensure regenerative agriculture and sustainable palm oil practices. Then we strengthen institutional capacity of smallholder farmer group institutional and cooperative to ensure available internal control system and traceable sourcing. Lastly, we improve knowledge and skill on financial literacy particularly for women farmer.