Afternoon Key Address

The role of the smallholder in supplying national and international products is significant, particularly as populations and markets are continually increasing. In emerging economies many governments are now under-resourced and direct support to smallholders has reduced; this has directly resulted in yield and quality decline and continual soil degradation. Olam, like others, is dependent on smallholder supply chains for many of the products within the businesses we operate. In response, the role of the private sector in supply chains has progressively changed over the past 10 years, taking up the role of delivering extension-based services to smallholder farmers so they can continually rise to the challenge of the growing markets. Olam has invested heavily in supplying technical training support, inputs and finance to ensure our supply chains are continually developing through increased integration with our farmers to ensure these important supply chains are not put at risk. Olam’s model is to invest in processing units and then build the community farmer-based supply chains to keep that processing unit fully operational.