Smallholder farmers are central to the aims of the FACT Dialogue. Smallholders produce a significant proportion of many of the agricultural commodities at the center of FACT’s work. But smallholders frequently need scaled-up support to ensure they have fair access to new sustainable markets and that they can succeed in work that protects forests and other ecosystems while promoting sustainable trade and development.

Smallholders often face significant hurdles in attempting to meet evolving global requirements on traceability and transparency of commodities. They need support to ensure their participation in certification schemes and to otherwise meet international requirements aimed at success in sustainable commodity management. Such requirements are important and signal positive action towards tackling deforestation in agricultural supply chains.  

In FACT member country Ghana, as an example, 90 percent of cocoa farmers are smallholders and have the responsibility for meeting international requirements for traceability and transparency. But many need support to fully participate in certification so they can see the benefits.

Similarly, the Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) project aims to support smallholders as they move through the necessary steps to becoming certified producers of sustainable palm oil, as well as promoting sustainability practices in the oil palm supply chain. The MSPO project provides valuable insights into the process of integrating smallholders into a national traceability and sustainability certification scheme that also incorporates traceability requirements.

Among FACT Dialogue member countries, an exchange of best practices and the identification of effective approaches to scale up support for smallholder farmers is continuing. Underpining this work are six “promising approaches” identified by FACT member countries:

• strengthening smallholder organizations and professionalization through support for setting up cooperatives and strengthening existing farmer groups;
• improving technical capacity with the aim of lowering the cost of technical assistance;
• enhancing land and tenure security, through measures including enhanced transparency;
• improving financial resources to be long-term and predictable through collaborations with local (financial) institutions and small- and medium-sized enterprises;
• improving access to information through local and culturally familiar channels; and improving resilience to climate change through enhanced support, including related to ecosystem restoration. Too often smallholders, who are crucial for global food production, receive only a tiny fraction of available climate finance, even though they are vulnerable to climate change impacts.