The Living Income
Community of Practice
WEBINARS
The Living income Community of Practice holds regular webinars covering topics from measuring actual and living incomes to closing income gaps, with speakers and examples from various disciplines and sectors. Here you can find recordings and links to resources associated with all past webinars from our series:
Exploring the impact of the new EU deforestation law on farmer livelihoods
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The EU passed a deforestation-free regulation in December 2022, which imposes restrictions on certain products in the EU market if they are not produced in accordance with local laws in producing countries, or if they contribute to deforestation or forest degradation. Several organisations have expressed concerns about the impact of this legislation on the livelihood of smallholder farmers. The legislation could potentially create barriers to entry for some farmers /cooperatives, exacerbating poverty among the most vulnerable farmers. In this webinar, we joined Solidaridad, Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, Carble and the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) to discuss whether the new legislation can actually stimulate further investment in payment for environmental services, thereby enhancing the income of farmers.
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Associated resources
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Healthcare Access: A Tool to Reduce the Income Gap
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A Living Income reflects the needs of a household, in a particular place, to afford a decent standard of living. A decent standard of living includes food, water, housing, education, healthcare, transport, clothing, savings and funds for unexpected events. But what happens when one of these essential needs is not available or comes at a particularly high cost? For many smallholder farmers, lack of access to affordable healthcare is a persistent problem. In this webinar, the Living Income Community of Practice welcomed healthcare organization Elucid, and speciality cocoa company Max Felchlin AG to explore how healthcare protection for smallholders can help reach livelihood and living income goals.
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Can smallholder coffee farmers achieve a living income? The TechnoServe - Nespresso
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The Living Income Community of Practice joined TechnoServe and Nespresso on this webinar. With over 50 years of experience, TechnoServe shared its approach to helping smallholder coffee farmers achieve a living income and how they overcome the challenges of measuring income. We learned how TechnoServe leverages local expertise, technical know-how, and impact measurement to empower enterprising people to lift themselves out of poverty. Furthermore, Nespresso, a coffee sector leader known for its investments to improve farmer income and a strategic partner to Technoserve, shared its perspective on the work being done in African coffee origins
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Tools to support action on income improvement - GIZ
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During the first webinar of 2023, GIZ invited us to explore three estimation tools: the Living Income Gap Estimator, the Living Income Reference Price Estimator, and the Living Wage Costing Tool. To contribute to fairer pricing policies, the Initiative for Sustainable Agricultural Supply Chains (INA) developed the tools to help users along the value chain identify the size of the living income gap, calculate the price to close the gap, and determine the additional wage costs to achieve a living wage. During the webinar, we had the opportunity to learn more about these tools and see practical examples of how they can be used.
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Tracking progress in living income programs - Farmer Income Lab
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In this webinar, we joined Mars, the Farmer Income Lab, ISEAL and the Sustainable Food Lab to discuss core metrics for farmer income programs. The Farmer Income Lab, a think-do tank founded by Mars, has developed a set of common core metrics and will share these with the LICOP members in this webinar. The webinar also shared the process and timeline for developing LICOP guidance on farm-level indicators for household income.
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Living income metric in food & agriculture benchmark
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How do we demonstrate improvement to the livelihoods of producers? What metrics do we use as an indicator? In this living income webinar, we joined the World Benchmarking Alliance to discuss living income metrics. The World Benchmarking Alliance has developed a Food and Agriculture Benchmark that measures and compares 350 food and agricultural companies on various sustainability indicators. Published biannually, the next will be published in Q3 2023.
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The 2023 iteration will include a farmer and fishers livelihood indicator within the social inclusion category. It will capture a company's contribution to improving the livelihoods of farmers and fishers through activities aimed at increasing income and resilience. Farmers often get only 5–10 percent of the total value of products sold to consumers. At the same time, companies with downstream activities capture most of the value added in global agri-food supply chains. Companies can close the living income gap by increasing pay, supporting resilience, and tackling inequalities in risks and power. Living income should not be a differentiator but standard practice for responsible companies. During this event, we will also hear from companies sharing their experiences improving producers' livelihoods
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The Cocoa Living Income Compendium
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In this webinar, the Living Income Community of Practice joined VOICE Network to explore the recently launched Living Income Compendium, an attempt to bring facts to the conversation around living income as well as debunking stubborn myths (and lazy excuses). The Compendium also offers a framework of how the sector should tackle farmer poverty; there is a real place for Good Agricultural Practices in achieving a living income, but this is only feasible if the enabling environment of Good Governance and Purchasing Practices are in place.
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Carbon Market Access for Smallholder Farmers through Climate-Smart Agriculture
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Making carbon markets accessible to smallholder farmers would seem to lie at the intersection of livelihoods and regenerative agriculture. But with the nuances of both disciplines, finding ways for smallholders to benefit from increased productivity and fees for environmental services is no small task. Recently, Solidaridad and Rabobank launched ACORN a direct trade platform that aims to make access to carbon markets for smallholder coffee farmers in Colombia a reality. In this webinar, the Living Income Community of Practice joined these two organisations to explore what it took to engineer and launch ACORN, and described the benefits that they expect farmers will realize.
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The Role of Governments in Enabling Living Income in Global Agriculture Value Chains
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The Living Income Community of Practice, Sustainable Food Lab, and Fair Trade Advocacy Office joined to discuss the Role of Governments in Enabling Living Income in Global Agriculture Value Chains.
The webinar featured a panel of government leaders who are shaping strategy and creating policy related to Living Income in multiple sectors and regions.
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In this webinar, we opened up a space for discussion to explore some of these questions:
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Why should governments adopt Living Income Strategies and Policies?
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What examples exist?
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What is needed to engage more public policy makers and ensure that all farmers along the value chains receive a Living Income?
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Roles of Professional Producer Organisations in Living Income
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Strong farmer organisations build resilient and sustainable communities that can seize new opportunities. This webinar explored the role of professional farmer organizations in providing services and consistent markets for farmers, and the critical role of these organizations in both improving and sustaining higher farmer incomes.
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In this webinar, we joined SCOPEinsight to explore the importance of strengthening agribusiness capacity to be professional and the link to finance. Rikolto discussed their work on the professionalization process, describing the application of the SCOPEinsight tools in practice.
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Levers for Income Improvement: Supporting Farmer Leadership for Entrepreneurship and Economic Development
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In this webinar, we joined the leadership development organization Emerging Leaders to learn about how they work directly with rural communities to focus on mindset change and transferable life leadership skills, and how their programmes release the creative problem solving, entrepreneurial, and proactive skills needed to transform farm productivity and create flourishing, resilient communities. Emerging Leaders and their partners, shared lessons learned and insights gained from over 10 years working in multiple countries, settings, and sectors empowering smallholder farmers and supply chain workers to start livelihood projects that enable them to earn a decent living.
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Sustainability systems discussion: the role of systems in contributing to farmers' incomes
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The Living Income Community of Practice works closely with sustainability systems to identify where they can best create change in this space, and to advance and deepen their living income strategies and the treatment of living income in their standards.
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In this webinar, we opened up a space for discussion to explore some of these questions:
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How are systems best placed to integrate living income goals? What are the conditions for change?
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How do living income strategies intersect with other strategies? (e.g gender)
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Are there significant differences between commodities under systems with regards to living income aspirations?
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What are the main barriers/challenges systems face to work in this area?
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Advancing living income in non-agricultural space
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The concept of living income goes a step beyond traditional notions of poverty alleviation that are concerned with basic subsistence and survival. It puts a strong emphasis on the idea of decency and earning enough income to live comfortably. When thinking about income, as opposed to wages, it is important to recognise that the income that a household earns can come from multiple sources. In the case of smallholder farmers for example, income can be earned through off farm business and remittances as well as from crop sales.
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A lot of the income research and guidance currently available is primarily agriculture focused. Can it be applied to other sectors as well? In this webinar, we shall hear from Pact and their work to improve the artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sector and the lives of artisanal miners. We will then have a discussion with Jessica Grillo (Heartwood LLC) on elements to consider when adapting the existing Living Income concept to non-agriculture based sectors.
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Living income and gender: Why does adopting gender transformative approaches to improve livelihoods in agriculture matter?
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In this webinar, we learnt about gender transformative approaches, why they are important and how the public and private sector, civil society organisations and multi-stakeholder initiatives can adopt these approaches to improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in coffee, cocoa and other agricultural supply chains.
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Speakers from Oxfam GB, Oxfam Ghana and IDH shared insights, lessons learned and best practice examples from the public and private sectors, and civil society organisations on applying gender transformative approaches to tackle key issues for women and men smallholder farmers. The webinar also explored the challenges to adopting these approaches and further recommendations for how sectors and companies can start to consider and adopt these approaches.
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EXCEL
Sustainability Systems - Showcase of projects that work to meet producer needs and positively influences livelihoods & resilience
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Small-scale producers should earn enough to be able to live a decent life. It’s a fundamental human right and critical to ensuring their viability and economic resilience. But for far too many, particularly from marginalized communities, their income barely covers the cost of living. Underlying this is the inequality in risk and power when engaging in global value chains. To build fair and sustainable value chains we need to have more inclusive approaches that work to address root causes of poverty more systemically. In many supply chains, inclusion of smaller producers in these approaches is a challenge. Sustainability standards and similar systems have sought to address this in various ways. Improvement strategies or programmes can combine a range of approaches, covering interventions from training and knowledge sharing, to implementation and capacity building partnerships, as well as efforts to shape and influence the broader enabling environment.
In this webinar, we heard how the following sustainability systems are working collaboratively with various actors to bring about systemic change:
• Bonsucro –Improving access to finance (from banks and financial institutions) through a data collection, management and sharing tool in support of improved production practices and certification; better practice, better finance.
• Textile Exchange and partners- Incentivizing good practices through a credit trading platform that delivers financial support directly to farmers.
• Aquaculture Stewardship Council- Supporting greater alignment between approaches through joint improvement programmes which enables data and knowledge sharing.
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An approach for aligning smallholder household incomes measurement
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In this webinar, we looked at how to approach measuring smallholder household incomes and the living income gap. The webinar began with a review of the key concepts and consideration points around income measurement, with a spotlight on the Income Measurement FAQ which has been designed to help LiCoP members understand how to approach measuring smallholder household incomes and the living income gap.
Measurement of smallholder incomes and the living income gap is key to understanding and taking action to improve livelihoods. However, smallholder income can be multifaceted and complex, and it is unlikely that any two measurement approaches will be the same. Alignment around measurement can open opportunities for collaborations to scale up interventions.
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We then heard about how they theoretical concepts were being put into practice in a baseline study in Ghana. To do this, we explored the purpose of the study, the measurement approach that was taken, and how that decision was made.
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Living income in small holder cotton production in Africa
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In this webinar, we took a closer look into the price building in the cotton sector with special emphasis on the impacts on African small-scale cotton farmers. Further, we presented and discussed the impact of different cotton sector organization models in Africa to improve farmers’ productivity and income. The cotton sector in different countries of sub-Saharan Africa shows different organizational models, ranging from atomistic competition to monopolistic structures. The models differ in their type of service provision and purchase agreements offered to smallholder farmers. As a result, there is an ongoing debate over which form of cotton sector organization offers more benefits to the farmers.
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In order to assess the gap between the actual income and a living income, information on total household income is needed. GIZ developed a simple tool based on gross margin calculations of a given focus product (crop) to estimate total household income, incl. on-farm, off-farm and other income streams. We presented and discussed this tool and its application among cotton farming households in Cameroon.
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Living Income State of Play July edition: workshop takeaways and agricultural sector perspectives
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What is the latest in Living Income? What are the key questions being asked? How are actors responding? This Living Income State of Play series webinar presents the key takeaways from the Living income Workshop held on May 19th, 2021. We reflected on some of the key practical points made by speakers in choosing the most effective approach to measuring income, sector advancements across a range of commodities, and discussion outputs on what a Living income approach means for different people in the food and agricultural system.
In the second part of the webinar, we heard updates from living income work in the sectors of natural rubber and herbs/spices. What is being done to ensure value can be equitably distributed across the entire natural rubber value chain? How herb and spices farmers are being supported to earn a decent living from their crops?
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Due Diligence for Living Income: how to address poverty and prosperity in supply chains in light of new EU legislation
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With the advances in the process for a new European Union Due Diligence Law on the Environment and Human Rights, there is growing debate regarding the scope of the human rights component. Given that the European Parliament debates have referenced the links between poverty and social and environmental problems like child labor and deforestation, there will likely be language in the law regarding due diligence processes that companies must undertake to identify poverty in their supply chains.What does this mean for companies sourcing agricultural goods from areas of high poverty? What will the due diligence process entail and how can companies, standards and NGOs support the processes of risk assessment and/or assessing whether and how sourcing practices can address the root cause of poverty and put communities and workers on a pathway to living incomes and living wages? This webinar presents a dialogue on this important topic with the LI CoP, European Commission, Fairtrade Advocacy Office and the World Cocoa Producers Organization/Ghana Civil Society Cocoa Platform.
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Living Income State of Play: Agricultural sector perspectives
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This webinar presents a range of speakers from the cocoa, coffee, vanilla and other sectors to get caught up on major developments and open questions on the topic of living income. What is the current status of living income benchmarks in major producing regions? How is the topic of living income integrated into the recent EU Dialogue on Sustainable Cocoa? What is the recent news on living income work in the sector organizations like the International Coffee Organization and Sustainable Vanilla Initiative? We recommend taking a look at the two recent Barometer reports for analysis and insight into the drivers and barriers to improving farmer income, as well as how income is linked with other key issues like deforestation and child labor: Cocoa Barometer and Coffee Barometer.
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Living Income and Standards Systems: Implementing living income requirements in standard systems
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The living income community of practice is committed to work with the standard systems community to explore how they can play a bigger role in measuring and strategizing for closing the income gap. After two successful webinars in February and May, that introduced the concept and explored main challenges, this webinar focuses on how standard systems are implementing living income requirements and what challenges still exist. We hear from Rainforest Alliance and their 2020 certification program, and learn about their new approach to enabling living income.
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Exploring options for measurement and analysis of living income gaps_ a case study of Madhya Pradesh
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ISEAL Alliance has worked for the last months on a pilot study to assess the living income gap for target cotton households from Madhya Pradesh. The project included exploring options for actual income measurement as well as understanding options that exist for establishing or approximating living income benchmarks. Through the process, great learnings have been drawn on how to conceptualise and execute living income gap frameworks. This webinar explores, step by step, options to help you in the process of building your living income approach, drawing from practical learnings and use cases.
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Gender-differentiated strategies to close the living income gap for smallholder coffee producers in Ethiopia
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This webinar addresses the topic of strategies to close the living income gap. The case of Ethiopian smallholder coffee farmers and value chain will be presented. In addition, gender-sensitive strategies to close the living income gap will be discussed based on the experienced opportunities and challenges of an example project in South Western highlands.
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Démystifier le concept de revenu vital: De quoi il s'agit et comment il peut promouvoir votre travail
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The topic of living income increasingly is a focal issue for government, civil society and industry in multiple sectors as it offers practical instruments for increasing farm incomes from a value chain perspective. This e-seminar series builds on practical experiences from sectors such as cocoa to learn about the concept of living income and the design and implementation of income-promoting strategies. This first webinar focuses on learning and discussing about the living income idea and concept and its added value for income promoting programs. This webinar is in French.
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What do we know about the impacts of market-based sustainability tools on farmers livelihoods?
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There is now a critical mass of empirical evidence to help understand the impacts of market-based sustainability tools on farmer incomes and livelihoods. This webinar is an opportunity to explore this evidence base creatively and analytically through the Evidensia platform (www.evidensia.eco) to support research, policy and practice on living income work. We explore the existing evidence base across sectors, geographies and key topics and tools of interest. It will help develop a common knowledge base on what we know, what we don’t know and where there are critical knowledge gaps in our understanding of impacts on farmer livelihoods. We have the time to review what the evidence base says on key topics and connect this to work in the Living Income Community of Practice (www.living-income.com).
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How to build a Living Income Roadmap: Integrating Living Income into your business
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Are you looking to integrate living income into your company activities? Are you new to the concept and struggle to navigate challenges to progress in this area? This webinar is targeted at companies currently working on addressing the economic viability of small producers in their supply chain through improving sourcing practices or implementing sustainability programmes.
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We heard from Andrew Brooks (Olam) and Laura Kent (TESCO) about the importance of integrating living income into company practices. In addition, this session is designed to create a space for companies to share experiences, discuss structural challenges faced, ask questions on areas that still remain unclear and learn from tools and guidances available.
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Living Income Reference Prices - Calculation and private sector insights
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This webinar addresses the topic of calculating reference prices for living income. After presenting methodological aspects, a tool for calculating living income reference prices was demonstrated showing data from Ethiopian coffee farmers. In addition, we heard from Ywe Franken (Tony's Chocolonely), Martin Kuntze-Fechner and Bettina von Reden (Living Income Project – Tree Crops Ghana) about their approach to as well as experience and challenges with living income reference prices.
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Pricing Strategies to close the Gap and the need to consider Supply Management
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This webinar discusses the macroeconomic factors that must accompany higher prices to avoid the vicious cycle of oversupply and subsequent price collapses. What does the evidence show of us of successful and failed attempts at supply management? We will then dive deeper into how supply management could work in the cocoa sector, and finalise by giving an overview of strategies that, together, are critical levers to achieve living incomes for the majority of smallholder commodity producers. We heard from Yuca Warts (Wageningen University & Research) and Jason Erskine’s experience from the Canadian dairy sector on their supply management system.
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Introducing Living Wage and Living Income Reference Values
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In this webinar from the Global Living Wage Coalition and Living Income Community of Practice, Martha and Richard Anker present their new methodology for estimating living wages and living incomes, which builds on their renowned Anker Methodology. The Anker Reference Value method is an important development for living wage and income work globally, allowing NGOs, companies, trade unions, and other stakeholders to understand wage and income gaps in many more countries and regions and start working to reduce them.
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Financing Pathways to Living Income
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Living Income requires multiple levers to be addressed by multiples actors. This session highlights specific tools, partnerships and approaches used among a wide range of actors directly involved in facilitating access to finance to smallholder farmers including global commercial banks (Rabobank), local banks (Banque Atlantique in Cote d’Ivoire), exporters (Barry Callebaut), micro-finance organisations (Advans), government institutions (Conseil du Café Cacao), cooperative members and special funds that look for innovative ways to mobilise different levels of investment such as the IDH Farmfit Fund.
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Living Income and Standards Systems: Main challenges and cross-sectoral learning.
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The Living Income Community of Practice is conducting a webinar series to empower standard systems to play a role in advancing living incomes. This webinar explores Sustainability Standards routes for helping farmers improve their income. It also explores some of the challenges that systems face and includes details on RSPO and Fairtrade USA work in the area.
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Living Income and Standards Systems: Introducing living income
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The Living Income Community of Practice is conducting a webinar series to empower standard systems to play a role in advancing living incomes. The first webinar in this series focusses on introducing the concept of living income and its applications, actual income and benchmarking, as well as explore its use and applications to close the income gap. In addition, it explores the many roles standards systems can play in advancing living income for smallholders.
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Closing the income gap: What Works to raise Farmer Incomes.
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Join the Living income Community of Practice in a conversation with partners of the Mars Farmer Income Lab on their cutting edge research released on effective approaches to improving small farmers incomes. The research was done by a consortium of experts from Wageningen University, Socialside Insight, Mars and Oxfam. Speakers will be Heather Pfahl, Global Socioeconomic Sustainability Lead for Mars and Joost Guijt, Wageningen University & Research, Lead Author of What Works to Increase Smallholder Farmer Incomes and the SSIR article on Boosting Farmer Incomes in Agricultural Supply Chains.
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The use of technology to drive consumer action.
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In this webinar, Fairchain Foundation and tip me show how they have used blockchain to deliver consumers with proof of impact as well as to explore how technology is used to influence consumer behaviour and turn products into an impact engine. Hear how they have put their concepts to practice and the feedback received both from a consumer and producer perspective!.
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Understanding actual incomes using the Household Economy Analysis (HEA).
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Living income benchmarks provide a tangible goal for the improvement of incomes, however measuring and understanding the current income situation of farmers remains a persistent challenge. Conceived in the humanitarian aid sector, the Household Economy Analysis (HEA) provides a robust framework that could be leveraged for understanding actual incomes, and also offers potential for modelling farm economics to inform decision making. Join Jessica Grillo (Heartwood LLC) and Jennifer Bush (FEG) as they present and discuss guidance produced under the Living Income Community of Practice on how the HEA can be used to measure the income gap.
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The cocoa sector advances on living income - updates on the floor price & living income differential in West Africa.
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The announcement that the Ivorian and Ghanaian governments will raise the floor price for cocoa farmers, as well as levy an extra fee to cocoa buyers, is an important and necessary step in order to make the cocoa sector more sustainable. This webinar discusses this important development, to consider the critical enabling factors in the implementation of the price mechanisms to deliver improved incomes for farming families over the long term.
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The Shubh Mint Project: How partnerships and project design helped raise incomes of Indian mint farmers
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Tanager and Mars Wrigley Confectionery have been working together in India since 2014 to help farmers the mint supply chain increase income and boost productivity. This webinar discusses and presents the Shubh Mint Project, currently in its third year of implementation.
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Improving Livelihoods in Dominican Republic Cacao: Measuring and Closing the Income Gap
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In 2015, Clif Bar partnered with Social Accountability International (SAI), and with key input from Richard Anker and Martha Anker, created a new methodology to estimate the living income level and measure the living income gap for smallholder cacao farmers in the Dominican Republic (DR). One year into the pilot project, Thao Pham of Clif Bar, Jane Hwang of SAI, and Altair Rodriguez, DR cacao farmer and in-country program coordinator, discuss the path they took – from benchmark methodology to implementation – and share key lessons from their successful public-private partnership.
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Coffee and Living Income
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There has been considerable media and focus on living income in the tea and cocoa sectors, but what about coffee? A number of coffee organizations are active in the Living Income Community of Practice and there is considerable action happening in the sector to address the current low price crisis. This webinar will explore the links between living income and coffee sustainability. We will hear from a recent analysis done by COSA on the living income gap in Kenyan coffee as part of the ISEAL Demonstrating Impacts On Poverty Initiative. Then the floor will be open for coffee organizations to contribute both your current work and current needs to promote exchange and find synergies.
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The role of professional farmer groups in delivering living incomes for farmers
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Cooperatives can be an effective tool in supporting smallholders to access markets and achieve a living income. How can farmer organizations best provide viable trade and high-quality services for their members? What tools can supply chain partners use to support this process? This public webinar explores these processes, and examine how these groups can work more effectively. Speakers are Masha Middelbeek (SCOPEinsight), Mark Blackett (AMEA Network/ Rikolto) and Dieter Fischer (IFC).
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The gender perspective
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In order to close the income gap, a combination of strategies is needed. This webinar focuses on women’s empowerment to improve income and resource allocation within a household. It discusses outcomes of recent studies done by Anna Laven of the Royal Tropical Institute KIT on intra-household dynamics of cocoa farmers in Côte d’Ivoire and what can be done from a gender perspective in order to reach a living income.
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Competition law
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Competition law, despite protecting consumers from issues such as price fixing, has been found to significantly hamper discussing price when it comes to thinking about improving incomes for impoverished smallholder farmers. Using two recently published papers which explore the topic, David Taylor (Fairtrade Foundation), Peter Möhringer (Fairtrade Deutschland) and Don Deville (Sustainable food Lab) frame a debate on the issue of competition law in the context of living income.
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Webinar slides: Competition Law
Report - Competition Law and SustainabilIty
Report - EU Competition Law and Sustainability in Food Systems
Pricing mechanisms in the cocoa sector, options to reduce price volatility and promote farmer value
Jan Willem Molenaar presents findings from research done by Aidenvironment and Sustainable Food Lab on ‘Pricing mechanisms in the cocoa sector: options to reduce price volatility and promote farmer value capture’. He shares the models explored in the paper as well as the main conclusions and recommendations to move towards improved cross-sectoral price and supply management. The webinar then focuses in on one specific pricing mechanisms being used by Oikocredit and partners to train farmer organizations to manage price risk. Hugo Villela from Oikocredit shares the pillars of their Price Risk Management initiative, and the learning on factors to enable farmer organizations to successfully implement PRM.
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Calculating the true price of food, the case of coffee
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The Impact Institute has pioneered an approach to calculating the ‘true cost’ of raw materials that account for social and environmental factors typically externalized in commodity pricing. They have worked with the Anker methodology to also link this method to the concept of living incomes in several value chains. Andrea Rusman from the Impact Institute presents their work to calculate the true price of coffee. Joel Brounen, Colombia Country Director for Solidaridad offers his thoughts on the use of the research for their work on sustainable coffee.
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Report - True Price of Coffee from Vietnam
Report - Assessing Coffee Farmer Household Income
Organic cotton trading models
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Organic agriculture can be a “force for good” and is considered the gold standard mode of production. However, an open conversation about the price and trade of organic cotton is urgently needed. This webinar shares the intentions and key findings behind Kering and Textile Exchange’s report ‘A world beyond certification – A best practices guide for organic cotton trading models’ which provides insight on the subject. The implications of the models for other sectors around smallholder income improvement is also discussed.
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Role of sustainability standard systems in living income strategies
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This webinar explores the potential benefits and limitations of the various elements of the standards' system model for contributing both to increased farmer incomes and to multi-stakeholder partnerships in pursuit of living income. The session showcases a range of ISEAL members’ case studies that capture how standards’ systems are currently innovating and experimenting with new approaches in order to increase their effectiveness in this regard.
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Indonesia benchmark and actions to close the income gap in rubber growing regions
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This webinar showcases the findings from a Living Income study conducted by GIZ in Kapuas Hulu (Indonesia), where rubber is grown. Aidenvironment has then done a follow-up study to highlight the role that different actors could play in closing the income gap. Friederike Martin from GIZ and Jan-Willem Molenaar from Aidenvironment discuss how data collected can be used to closing the income gap
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Smallholder data, insights and action
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Corinne Riquet from CGAP (Consultative Group to Assist the Poor) provides an overview of the smallholder household study recently conducted by CGAP in Cote D’Ivoire. In the second part of the webinar Julie Greene, from Olam, discusses how CGAP study insights have been used to inform a collaborative study on mobile finance solutions. This partnership aims to explore the feasibility of digitizing payments and additional financial services for farmers, helping them to improve their savings and livelihood investments in the process.
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Insights from the Household Survey in Cote d'Ivoire.pdf
National Survey and Segmentation of Smallholder Households.pdf
Stakeholder levers for addressing income gaps
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One of the key pillars of the Living Income Community of Practice is to explore methods for addressing gaps between living income benchmarks and existing incomes for smallholders. Join The Sustainable Food Lab and Business Fights Poverty as they present on their exciting, recently published, collaborative paper on levers for stakeholders to pull in order to raise incomes to a decent level.
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Closing Income Gaps - How do investors address living income?
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Poverty is often identified as a significant driver of child labour practices across the globe. Join Stina Nilsson from GES International as she discusses their new report 'Combatting child labour in cocoa – investor expectations and corporate good practice' and talks on how GES coordinates collaborative engagements among institutional investors towards the cocoa industry to address income gaps and consequently child labour.
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Malawi Tea 2020 & GIZ 'Fast Track' study on living and actual income
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Learn more about a recent study on living income conducted by GIZ under the umbrella of the Malawi Tea 2020 partnership. This partnership brings together the organizations who can deliver the changes required to achieve a competitive and profitable Malawian tea industry where workers earn a living wage and smallholders earn a living income.
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Associated resources
PDF.
ETP, GIZ & Malawi 2020 Intro slides
Model Tea Smallholder Actual and Living Income slides​
Short Paper - Actual and Living Income Malawi
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Closing income gaps - an insight from the cocoa sector
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Antonie Fountain from the VOICE Network discusses the viable options to raise farm gate prices to the level that allows farmers to escape structural poverty and attain a living income. The VOICE Network has published a consultation paper on this topic and this was an opportunity to understand the key points raised in the paper and how the sector can act on this critical component of closing the gap between actual and living incomes.
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Associated resources
PDF.
Measuring income - What income? For what purpose?
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Many wondering if and how companies and organizations can effectively measure income gains and improvements beyond adoption of good agricultural practices. This webinar focuses on approaches to identifying and measuring incomes, and includes a presentation from Julie Peachey, from IPA, who provides an overview and update on the Progress out of Poverty Index (PPI). Furthermore Manfred Borer, Country Director of SwissContact, presents on how the foundation has used the PPI in their data collection for their country-wide Sustainable Cocoa Production Programme in Indonesia.
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Associated resources
PDF.
Fair Price Methodology
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In this webinar, Ruud Bronkhorst from the InfoBridge Foundation presents methodology how to calculate ‘fair’ prices for agricultural products originating from smallholders. The focus is on the important role of market prices that prevent the farmer to achieve a Living Income and showing how ‘fair’ prices can be calculated and used, on the basis of grains in Burkina Faso.
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Associated resources
PDF.
Cocoa Action Farmer Economic Model
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In this webinar, Manuel Kiewisch from World Cocoa Foundation and Will Saab from New Foresight present the CocoaAction Farm Economics Model, which provides answers to two important questions: 'What constitutes a viable farm economy for cocoa farmers?' and 'What is the expected impact of farm-level interventions, such as good agricultural practices, on the farmer’s business?'
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Associated resources
PDF.
Household economy approach - Rainforest Alliance
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This living income webinar focuses on the topic of the 'household economy approach', with a baseline cocoa study being presented by Jessi Grillo, Senior Manager, Livelihoods and Social Science, Rainforest Alliance, to illustrate the use of this approach. It also provides updates on progress and next steps.
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Associated resources
PDF.
Workshop Key Messages and Next Steps
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Following on from our successful workshop held in London in June 2016 on Operationalizing the Living Income concept, this webinar looks at what key messages emerged from the day and what our next steps should be to take this work forward.
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Associated resources
PDF.
Training researchers - the experience of the Living Wage Coalition
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Michelle Bhattacharyya, Coordinator of the Global Living Wage Coalition, shares the experience of the Coalition training researchers to do consistent and credible Living Wage Benchmarks.
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Associated resources
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Income and pricing approaches - Fairtrade international
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In our recent discussions in the Living Income webinar series, one of the topics that has garnered the most interest is how to use information from a living income benchmark to inform decisions about product pricing. In this webinar, Fairtrade International shares how Fairtrade is approaching this issue, presenting examples from work to date. This presentation kicks off with a discussion about some of the key methodological and operational issues faced when using living income to inform pricing.
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Associated resources
PDF.
Calculating a living income: where we stand on a review of options
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In this webinar, Kristin Komives reviews the 2015 discussions about approaches to calculating a living income, summarizes options on the table, and highlights the issues that still remain to be resolved. She looks in particular detail about the Anker living wage methodology and to what extent information generated in calculating living wages with this methodology could be used for living income calculations. A goal of the webinar is to spark discussion about next steps to take in testing or evaluating approaches.
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Associated resources
PDF.
Calculating living income benchmarks - Heifer International
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Webinar No. 5 of the Living Income Webinar Series delivered on 08 December 2015.
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Associated resources
PDF.
The Uses of the Living Income concept
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Webinar delivered on 10 November 2015.
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Associated resources
PDF.
Measuring household incomes of small farmers, and farm economic modelling
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Webinar No. 3 of the Living Income Webinar Series. Delivered by COSA on 13 October 2015.
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Associated resources
PDF.
Webinar 3: Measuring Household Incomes of Small Farmers and Farm Economic Modeling Slides
Generic Example for Calculating Household Income by GIZ
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Webinar No. 2 of the Living Income Webinar Series delivered on 8 September 2015.
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Associated resources
PDF.
Living Income Recap Presentation by GIZ
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Webinar No. 1 of the Living Income Webinar Series delivered on 14 July 2015. Presentation by GIZ.
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Associated resources
PDF.