Sustainable trade initiative IDH to partner India in improving farmers’ livelihood

IDH, a Netherlands-based sustainable trade initiative, wants to partner the Indian government in improving the livelihood of farmers, particularly small landholders, the organisation’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Daan Wensing has said. 

“This is very much in line with the objectives of the government and other stakeholders across India….IDH is not only working with supply chain companies but also with the financial sector. We have our own impact investment fund that de-risks investments in smallholder agriculture,” he told businessline.

Leveraging market

This is done by converting smallholder farmers into an asset class for banks and finance firms to invest in them. IDH, which has been functioning in India since 2009, is an initiative that leverages market power to create better jobs, incomes and environment, besides gender equality. 

The Utrecht-based organisation, which is working on about 40 projects across 18 States in spices, textiles, food, tea and coffee, is mainly funded by Governments, particularly the Netherlands. 

 Daan Wensing, CEO, IDH

In India, IDH’s objective is to improve the economic status of farmers, ensure their sustainability and provide them with market linkage, said Jagjeet Singh Kandal, Country Director – India, IDH.

“Most of our focus is how will we help the farmer’s livelihoods. That’s the basis of it. We help the farmer become better at farming and thereby enable him to become certified depending upon which is the market linkage,” he said.

Indian journey

IDH began its journey in India working in cotton and tea sectors. It has touched the lives of over a million cotton farmers through its cotton programme and in the tea sector it has developed a sustainable certification programme. It has offices in Delhi, Bhopal, Guwahati, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. 

“In cotton, our focus is how we help farmers’ livelihoods. We are working in spices and coffee with Walmart Foundation. We are going into Kodagu area where there is fairly large farming of coffee and spices. Farmers do multi-crops there,” Kandal said. 

Jagjeet Singh Kandal, Country Director – India, IDH

IDH does not work with one commodity. “We have what we call the landscape approach that looks at larger areas. So it’s about scale. We’re not into small pilot projects anymore. For example, in Madhya Pradesh we are working across 9 districts. We are going to touch 1.2 lakh farmers in cotton, wheat, bajra, soya and other fruits and vegetables,” he said. 

The Netherlands-based initiative also looks into what farmers do for three months after their crops are done in nine months. “So, we work on sustainable agriculture with whatever crop the farmer does 12 months a year. We help them get market linkages for all their crops,” the IDH Country Director - India said. 

‘Grow Asia’

Wensing said outside of India, IDH has worked in Vietnam along with the World Economic Forum (WEF) in the coffee sector. 

“We brought together the international trade and roasters for Vietnamese producers and their government to transform the coffee sector. We also looked at helping the growers when a lot of pesticides that were banned in international markets were used (in that country,” the IDH CEO said. 

Apart from coffee, the organisation has helped growers with pepper and vegetables that are inter-cropped with coffee. Today, most of the coffees coming out of Vietnam are certified, he said. 

IDH is part of WEF “Grow Asia” platform under which it helps small growers in Indonesia, particularly in palm oil. “We are also trying to connect Malaysia and Indonesia with India, which is a leading import of palm oil,” said Wensing. 

Kandal said since India imports 95 per cent of its palm oil demand. “We want the Indian footprint on Indonesia and Malaysia (on sustainability) from where we import to lead to a real positive change in those countries. We need to leverage our footprint as a consumer,” he said.  

IDH is looking at what it can do for Indian companies and consumers to drive sustainability. It is also working with the Indian Textile Ministry to look at alternative materials as part of sustainable textiles. 

The organisation, which is working in Africa too in partnership with private companies, is happy working with Indian officials and other stakeholders, Wensing said. 

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