The Living Income
Community of Practice
Virtual Living Income June Workshop 2020
23th June 2020
In our previous workshop, we shared and discussed methodologies on measuring a living income and defining living income benchmarks. In this workshop, we explore strategies that support living income for smallholder farmers. We highlight pricing, diversification and farmer leadership, and in the following month continue with additional deep-dive webinars on finance, supply management and pricing.
Agenda
Session 1: Living Income Reference Price: What is it and how do you calculate it?
Session 2: Role of Cooperatives to Drive Change: Farmer perspectives on income improvement programs
Session 3: Levers for impactful income diversification: Learning from opportunities and challenges in cash crop production
Contact us: livingincome@isealalliance.org
Sustainable prices, particularly at farm gate, are one of the fundamental levers of change for the living income movement. Businesses are increasingly considering value distribution and start working on various approaches towards living wages for their workers and living income for their farmer suppliers. In this session we will discuss approaches to calculate a sustainable and fair price which covers the costs of sustainable production and allows achieving living incomes.
• What are the emerging consensus points about calculating living income reference
prices? What are the points of debate?
• What work is currently under way on pricing?
Moderated by Tim Loos (GIZ).
Speakers: Carla Veldhuyzen (Fairtrade International) and Friedel Huetz-Adams (SÜDWIND e.V.)
In this session leaders of producer organizations will speak about the fundamental role they have to create value for their members and drive change. We will showcase initiatives that have positively impacted the livelihoods of farmers and discuss critical success factors as well as the challenges they run into. They will share their views on producer ownership and shared responsibility to implement strategies to attain living incomes.
Session objectives:
-
Stress the need to make a living income as the business case from a farmer perspective
-
Demonstrate how efficient producer organizations contribute to improve the livelihood conditions in their communities
-
Provide best practice examples of producer-led interventions to achieve sustainable yields and resilient farms
-
Articulate the importance of producer ownership and shared responsibility to successfully implement living income strategies.
Moderated by Anne Marie Yao (Fairtrade Africa).
Speakers: Aminata Bamba (Ecookim), Kone Siaka (Coobadi Cooperative), Guede Meguy Genevieve (Women School of Leadership, ECAM Meagui), Samuel Adimado (Kuapa Kokoo Cooperative).
Diversifying income sources of farming households holds promising potential for increasing income and income resilience, improving food security and promoting viable farming systems. Put into practice, diversification requires enabling agronomic conditions at farm level, investments and adoption of new practices by farmers who might often be lacking the entrepreneurial skills to evaluate risks and returns of such decisions, and supporting the enabling environment. Whether diversification, be it on-farm or off-farm, can promote higher and more resilient household income also depends on market opportunities and financing options.
This session will build on key learnings from smallholder focused income projects to derive learnings for effective diversification strategies.
Session objectives:
-
Introduce diversification potentials at different levels of the supply chain
-
Draw from learnings on key challenges of promoting living income in cash crop production to identify levers for effective diversification strategies
Moderated by: Friederike Martin (GIZ)
Speakers: Annemarie Matthess (GIZ), Christina Archer (Sustainable Food Lab), Aaron Mead-Long (WCF) and Tawiah Agyarko-Kwarteng (The Hershey Company).