Global Trade, Agricultural Supply Chains and Responsible Sourcing: Sustainability-driven Trade Requirements, Access to Markets and Upstream Suppliers

Geneva - The FAO Liaison Office in Geneva, in collaboration with the FAO Markets and Trade Division, organized another session of Agricultural Trade Talks on responsible sourcing and agricultural supply chains. The session brought together various stakeholders to explore how agricultural cooperatives, smallholder farmers, and small businesses can address development challenges in meeting the market's changing needs for global trade and sustainability. Panelists discussed topics such as responsible business conduct, risk-based due diligence legislation, collaboration between direct and indirect suppliers, and professionalizing agricultural cooperatives.

Pascal Liu, FAO Senior Economist from the Markets and Trade Division, elaborated on the OECD-FAO Guidance for Responsible Agricultural Supply Chains which is the leading global framework for agri-businesses and investors to address the sustainability-driven requirements of markets and also provided concrete examples of FAO’s work and activities on responsible business conduct in agriculture. Tomislav Ivancic, FAO Global Advisor of Responsible Sourcing and Agricultural Supply Chains from the Markets and Trade Division, focused on agricultural cooperatives within the context of responsible sourcing and risk-based due diligence and highlighted the importance of agricultural cooperatives in global trade in terms of development, aggregated market access and capacity building.

During the panel discussion, Clea Kaske-Kuck from the World Business Council for Sustainable Development emphasized the value of collaboration and engagement between direct and indirect suppliers to promote traceability across the value chains and referred to the importance of agricultural cooperatives offering gateways ensuring that the farmers are part of the conversation. José Antonio Hidalgo Molina from the Association of Banana Exporters of Ecuador stressed the importance of agricultural cooperatives in the banana industry in supporting small scale farmers by giving them access to inputs including seeds and development funds; sharing ways of sustainable practices of production and providing key statistics at farm level.

Mascha Middelbeek from the Sustainable Trade Initiative provided insights on how to professionalize agricultural cooperatives and farmer organizations through a private sector approach, and Danilo Salerno from the International Cooperative Alliance underscored the importance of data and information as well as the significance of cooperation and partnerships with international organizations and research centers in addressing the challenges to meet the changing market needs in the context of due diligence requirements.

Kathryn Lundquist from the WTO Economic Research and Statistics Division provided remarks in relation to the ongoing work of the WTO Informal Group on micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) which was launched in 2017 to identify and address obstacles to MSMEs participation in international trade and also noted that while the group addressed various topics from digitalization to trade facilitation. Small holder farmers and facilitation of trade for those actors were one of the topics raised during the discussions. In her concluding remarks, Marjoleine Hennis, Chair of the OECD-FAO Advisory Group on Responsible Agricultural Supply Chains, emphasized the link between trade, development, and responsible business conduct and noted that responsible business conduct can help building more inclusive, sustainable and resilient agrifood systems by underlining the important role that the agricultural cooperatives have as the front line actors in the development.

FAO Geneva Trade Talk series
The FAO Liaison Office in Geneva organizes technical dialogues under the FAO in Geneva Trade Talks series (FAO in Geneva Agriculture Trade Talks and FAO in Geneva Fisheries Trade Talks) in collaboration with the Markets and Trade Division (EST) and the Fisheries and Aquaculture Division (NFI). These events aim to inform trade stakeholders, in Geneva and beyond, on timely issues in relation to agriculture and trade, showcase the analytic work of FAO and provide factual input to Members on issues that could be relevant to ongoing discussions.