Sustainable Business Podcast by Innovation Forum

Are land rights the key for smallholder farmers?

Companies have a big role to play in helping their smallholder farmer suppliers secure land rights. Secure land rights are often essential for smallholders to obtain finance – support that is critical for making investments that raise farm productivity, improve post-harvest practices, smooth household cash flow, and aid better access to markets and management of risk. Farmers that own their land are also incentivised to improve their farms, and so boost the yields that sourcing companies need for supply security. 

 

Leading the discussion in this webinar: 

 

Chris Jochnick, CEO and President, Landesa 

Kavita Prakash-Mani, executive director, Grow Asia 

Michael McManus, VP, corporate, government affairs and stakeholder engagement, Asia Pulp & Paper 

 

Introduced and moderated by Ian Welsh, publishing director, Innovation Forum 

Can supply chain technology deliver improved human rights?

Three experts discuss the new technology, such as blockchain and other application-based innovations, with the potential to change the game in the management of human rights risks for business.

• Sean Ansett, founder, At Stake Advisors
• Kilian Moote, project director of KnowtheChain, Humanity United
• Jessi Baker, founder, Provenance

The discussion is introduced and moderated by Toby Webb, founder of Innovation Forum.

Kellogg, Bunge and EDF on how technology can secure food supply

In a changing climate and faced with an ever-growing population, the challenges for agriculture are stark. In the latest Innovation Forum webinar, panellists from Kellogg, Bunge and the Environmental Defense Fund debate how business can engage farmers to adopt climate smart agriculture, the secrets to developing long-term partnerships, and how these can help achieve real impact at scale. Among the questions discussed are how agriculture can become a net carbon sink, sourcing funding and investment for new technologies and the role of GMOs in increasing yields and reducing environmental impacts. 

 

Panel: 

Suzy Friedman, director, agricultural sustainability, Environmental Defense Fund

Megan Weidner, VP corporate responsibility and sustainability, Bunge

Amy Braun, sustainability director, Kellogg

 

Introduced and moderated by Ian Welsh, Innovation Forum 

 

Join brands Walmart, Unilever, Bunge, Smithfield, United Suppliers, Syngenta, The Nature Conservancy, Union of Concerned Scientists and more to discuss innovation and sustainable agriculture at the Pew Centre in Washington DC, November 17-18 at Innovation for Sustainable Agriculture. We will continue the discussion around climate smart agriculture, and take a practical look at the biggest issues in agricultural production, commodity case studies and some of the latest solutions coming off the ground to make production more sustainable and efficient.

Deforestation debate – how business brings policy into performance

Innovation Forum's Toby Webb chats with Brendan May, chairman, Robertsbridge, about how corporate best practice is developing in the ever-more complex issues around eliminating deforestation risks from operations and supply chains

Sugar supply chain challenges debated – PepsiCo, CSC Sugar and Bonsucro

Corporate commitments, how to achieve transparency and build trusted and effective sugar sourcing policies are discussed in this new Innovation Forum webinar. With Rob Meyers, sustainability director at PepsiCO, Diane Stevenson, director of sustainabilty at CSC Sugar, and Simon Usher, CEO of Bonsucro. Introduced and moderated by Innovation Forum's Ian Welsh

Partnerships to tackle human rights for business – Thai Union, Nestlé and Intel

In the latest webinar from Innovation Forum, Darian McBain from Thai Union, Yann Wyss from Nestlé and Mike McDonnell from Intel discuss human rights and business risks, and how partnerships can help implement viable solutions and programmes. Moderated by Innovation Forum's Toby Webb.

Tracking corporate commitments to deforestation-free supply chains

This webinar, co-hosted by Forest Trends and Innovation Forum, examines the trends among corporate commitments to reducing deforestation from the “big four” agricultural commodities – palm, timber & pulp, soy, and cattle – which are responsible for more than a third of tropical deforestation each year. The discussion reflects on the key findings of the second annual report of Forest Trends’ Supply Change project, which tracks the progress on 579 public commitments made by companies from all around the world. 

Grow Asia on smallholder collaboration, scale, engagement and solutions

Ian Welsh talks to Kavita Prakash-Mani from Grow Asia about the barriers to collaboration, how to create systemic change, scaling pilot projects and engaging smallholders on solutions.

Golden Agri-Resources' Anita Neville discusses traceability, responsibility and targets

Ian Welsh talks to Anita Neville, vice president, corporate communications and external affairs at Golden Agri-Resources (GAR) about the challenges of achieving traceability, corporate responsibility and sustainability targets

Bastien Sachet of TFT discusses smallholders and certification

Ian Welsh chats to Bastien Sachet, CEO at TFT, about the disadvantages of certification, scaling up and the potential of technology.