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Smallholder engagement in soy
As part of our responsible sourcing approach AAK
Kamani, our joint venture in India, has committed to
actively include smallholders into our supply chains.
This is one of the cornerstones of our Policy for
Responsible
Sourcing of Vegetable Oils.
At the end of 2018, AAK Kamani signed a Memorandum
of Understanding (MoU) in the SMART project
in Maharashtra, India. This stands for State of Maharashtra
Agribusiness and Rural Transformation and is a
productive partnership for Climate Resilient Agriculture
headed by the World Bank and the Government of
Maharashtra.
The key objectives of the project are:
Supporting value addition in the post-harvest
segment of agricultural value chains;
Developing a mechanism for productive alliances
involving various stakeholders in agricultural supply
chains;
Improving the current policy and regulatory framework
in the agribusiness sector;
Developing marketing and credit linkages with
community-based organizations (CBOs) like farmer
producer companies, cluster-level federations and
farmer groups;
Improving the efficiency in agricultural supply chains
through private sector partnerships that can be scaled
up through project interventions.
AAK Kamani’s role in the project is to engage in
the community-based purchasing of soy as well as
groundnut through the SMART model. This creates a
more direct supply chain, increases traceability and
ensures improved control over quality and food safety
requirements. On the other hand, the system empowers
smallholder farmers to directly engage with buyers and
to become part of contract farming agreements. The
system also strengthens the local infrastructure that
enables long-term capacity building for smallholders.
AAK Kamani has started the partnership with the
Government of Maharashtra and the farmer producer
companies in 2018 in order to increase the engagement
during the planting season starting in April/May 2019.
We are looking forward to deepening this partnership
and seeing the results during the harvesting season in
November 2019.
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