From smallholder to sustainable supplier
23/08/2011: Unilever and Oxfam are working together on a groundbreaking five-year project in Azerbaijan – aiming to explore the best ways of including smallholder farmers in the supply chain.
The project aims to help onion farmers in poor communities improve their crop yields and market their produce by providing advice, training, seeds and fertilisers.
The onions produced by these farmers are set to find their way into Knorr products on the supermarket shelves in three to five years’ time.
Building a sustainable supply chain
Azerbaijan suffers from severe levels of rural poverty and historic under-investment in agriculture. The project combines Oxfams's poverty alleviation objectives with Unilever’s aim to include more smallholder farmers in its supply chain.
For both Oxfam and Unilever, the project is a chance to determine how smallholder farmers can be meaningfully involved in business supply chains – which means giving them the training, support and security they need to work their way out of poverty and insecurity.
A clear business case
Through Unilever's Sustainable Living Plan, the company has made a commitment to link more than 500,000 smallholders into its supply chain. The world’s 500 million smallholder farmers represent an untapped resource that makes sense to reach out to. At the same time, Unilever can help these farmers improve their livelihoods and those of their communities.
While the project is at the pilot stage, it still aims to include around 200–300 farmers over the coming years.
"For me this is an innovative and experimental approach, grounded in commercial realities, to improving the livelihoods of some of the world’s most marginalised smallholder farmers," says Justin Tait, a member of the project team.
"It’s exploring ways of achieving sustainability for all supply-chain partners, both commercially and environmentally."
Rafiga Ahmedova (pictured above), a farmer involved in the project, adds, "I have hope in my heart that this project will help us to overcome our problems. There are very poor farmers and single mothers living here. For me, it would be perfect if our onions were sold in global markets. It would be a miracle!"
