Tackling Deforestation: Mobilizing multi-commodities landscape collaboration

Smallholders – small-scale farmers – make up 70 percent of all farmers globally. An estimated 450 million smallholder farmers in Asia produce up to 80 percent of the food consumed in the region. In Indonesia, the agricultural landscape is multi-commodity, comprising a mix of smallholders who farm vital crops such as palm, rubber, coffee, and cocoa.

These crops are essential for daily needs: palm oil is found in products as wide-ranging as pizza to lipstick; rubber, in medical devices, tyres, and clothes; and coffee is one of the most highly consumed beverages in the world. However, smallholders often have limited support from the government and lack training in good agricultural practices. This leads to poor yields, which smallholders make up for often by acquiring more land through deforestation.

As one of the prominent players in the palm oil industry, Musim Mas has outlined strategies that aim to support smallholders’ livelihoods and standards of living while preserving forests, food security, and biodiversity. The company also faces the task of remaining profitable and balancing government and local stakeholders’ needs. Some 2.6 million smallholders manage 40% of planted palm in Indonesia — this underlines the urgency in supporting them and achieving a deforestation and exploitation-free supply chain.

Musim Mas has been engaging with smallholders in several provinces across Indonesia for many years. Armed with a proven programme and curriculum, Musim Mas now wants to mobilize producers and agencies across commodities, collaborating within landscapes, to share and exchange strategies on how best to support smallholders in tackling deforestation.

How can the world’s most in-demand agricultural commodities mobilize across landscapes and support smallholders to limit deforestation and reduce particularly hard-to-reduce Scope 3 emissions?

In this panel organised by Eco-Business in partnership with Musim Mas, sustainability experts who worked on smallholders and landscapes initiatives will share their insights about the smallholder landscape, and how partnerships and collaborations across multi-commodity industries can lead the way to tackle deforestation and advance sustainability initiatives.This event will be closed to the media and will follow the Chatham House Rule.

‍This event will be closed to the media and will follow the Chatham House Rule.