Empowering Smallholder Farmers: The Path to Deforestation-Free Rubber Supply Chains to Meet the EUDR

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On Wednesday, 19 April 2023, the European Union approved the upcoming Deforestation-Free Regulation (EUDR) to prevent companies from placing products linked to deforestation onto the EU market. As part of the wider vision of the EU Green Deal, it will demand companies who import rubber or rubber-based products (e.g., tires) to verify that their supply chain is deforestation-free. It’s a push towards an era of environmental accountability, yet it also sparks debates about the path forward for the rubber industry.

The EUDR requires companies to have traceability to the farm level, including geo-location data and proof of land legality. According to the regulation, every plot below 4 hectares requires at least a GPS point coordinate, while plots above 4 hectares must have a polygon.

Fulfilling these traceability requirements is no small feat. There is concern from the industry that smallholder farmers may be unintentionally excluded from global sustainable supply chains. Ensuring smallholder farmer inclusion requires a holistic sustainability approach.  There is no doubt that the rubber industry has begun moving towards sustainable rubber sourcing through combined industry efforts like the Global Platform for Sustainable Natural Rubber (GPSNR). However, the reality is that most imported rubber to the EU currently does not meet the regulatory requirements as the industry lacks traceability to the farm level. As 85% of the global natural rubber supply is supplied by approximately 6 million smallholder farmers, the implications of this regulation could be far-reaching and severe, particularly for these smallholder farmers.

However, there is a lot of hope.

Firstly, even though it might seem challenging, traceability to the farm level is doable – even for the rubber industry. This has been demonstrated in a GPSNR-funded farmer training and coaching project primarily focused on supporting smallholders to apply Good Agriculture Practices (GAP). Koltiva, the company I am working for and who was selected to be the implementing partner for this project, has mapped more than 4,000 farmers and their farms to help them to prepare for the EUDR in less than a year.

Secondly, we believe that traceability to the farm is scalable. In our work with clients in 51 countries, we were able to map almost 1 million smallholder farmers through our KoltiTrace platform. Platforms such as KoltiTrace allow companies to map and verify their supply chain, including transaction traceability from Seed to Tire and deforestation-free analysis.

Finally, EUDR could have a long-term positive impact on smallholder farmers. Currently, many rubber farmers do not have proper land titles. Due to the EUDR geolocation requirements, many smallholders will, for the first time, have access to a map of their own plantation, allowing them to legalize their land.

And it doesn’t stop there. Smallholders have largely been invisible in global supply chains. Traditional development programs have tried to engage them, but they have not reached the expected results. Many smallholders still have no access to knowledge, no access to capital,  and soon will also be excluded from the carbon economy.

I believe that it’s possible to bridge these gaps. Traceability to farm level and digitalizing the first mile of agricultural value chains can lay the foundation for holistic sustainability interventions. Enabled by technology and data, the sector can equip farmers with critical knowledge, improve their access to finance, actively support farmers to apply low-carbon practices and enable them to reap the benefits of the growing carbon economy.

While traceability cannot be achieved overnight, the rubber industry is in a unique position. At GPSNR, the major industry players are sitting at one table. Through combined efforts and data-sharing agreements of shared supplier data, the rubber industry can become a leading example of how to meet the EUDR.


About the Author:
Luca Fischer is Koltiva’s Program Manager, leading Koltiva’s boots-on-the-ground implementation projects in the rubber sector globally. He bridges the gap between the client, product, and field teams.

Luca has over five years of work experience in sustainable sourcing, smallholder livelihood, and climate-smart agriculture development. He graduated with an M.Sc. in Sustainable Resource Management from the Technical University of Munich, Germany.

About Koltiva (click here for more information)
Established in 2013, Koltiva is a leading agritech company for enterprises to make their global supply chains traceable, inclusive, and climate-smart. Backed by Koltiva’s human-centered technology with boots-on-the-ground professional service, Koltiva supports some of the largest multinational companies by digitizing and verifying global supply chains, focusing on enhancing traceability, inclusiveness, and sustainability. Koltiva combines triple-tech (AgriTech, FinTech, and ClimaTech) to improve producers’ outcomes and profitability while building more sustainable supply chains.

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Introducing GPSNR Topic Talks! Webinar Series

GPSNR Topic Talks! is a new webinar series organised by the GPSNR Secretariat and presented by GPSNR members. The webinars will take place over three Tuesdays in October and November, and will cover three main themes around sustainability and the global natural rubber supply chain.

The first Topic Talk, a presentation by Philippe Thaler from CIRAD on the implications of EU legislation on imported deforestation, took place just yesterday night. The webinar was well attended by GPSNR members from various membership categories. In his presentation, Philippe covered the current status of EU commitments towards avoiding imported deforestation and how France has started implementing its policy. He also elaborated on the demand from French institutions to CIRAD to assess compliance with this policy in natural rubber. He concluded with some examples of how GPSNR can demonstrate the platform’s positive impacts in this context. The Q&A session afterward allowed for a deeper dive into the topic, as well as opening up some interesting questions on the use of alternative tools apart from compliance and assurance that can also help stakeholders progress towards their zero deforestation goals.

The next Topic Talks will focus on the themes of smallholder solutions as well as assurance and smallholders. More details on the upcoming webinars are provided in the subsequent section of this article. GPSNR members may contact the Secretariat to register for the webinars.


Smallholder Solutions: From Income Diversification to Landscape Approaches

3 November 2020 | 7PM (GMT+8)   

This webinar consists of two presentations:

“A landscape-level approach to inclusion and capacity building for rubber smallholders”

Presented by: Kirana Megatara, Proforest & SNV

This presentation is based on experience from the Kelola-Sendang project in South Sumatra, where SNV, with Proforest support, worked with rubber smallholders in the context of a large jurisdictional initiative. New links were built between these groups and a crumb rubber factory buyer in the Kirana group, helping to streamline the supply chain and open channels of communication on sustainability issues.

“Exploring Smallholder Solutions in the Rubber Sector – The Processing and Sale of Rubberwood to Support Smallholder Financing in Indonesia”

Presented by: WWF with Financial Access

HeveaConnect, Target Corporation, and World Wildlife Fund are engaged in finding solutions to enhance the production and trade of sustainable natural rubber. The three organizations came together in 2019 around the shared interest in understanding how the processing and sale of rubberwood might incentivize the adoption of sustainable practices by natural rubber smallholders and enhance their livelihoods. We enlisted the services of Financial Access to analyze the potential of rubberwood to serve as a mechanism to support smallholder financing in Indonesia. Although the scope of the analysis was limited to two provinces in Sumatra, the findings of this study could be used there and elsewhere in Indonesia to inform the development of sustainable natural rubber initiatives that include the processing and trade of rubberwood as one of several strategies to support equity in natural rubber supply chains.

Assurance and Smallholders: Learning from Existing Schemes

24 November | 7PM (GMT+8)

This webinar consists of two presentations:

“FSC Smallholder Certification Solutions”

Presented by: FSC

The presentation will cover FSC’s solutions for smallholders to become certified. First, an overview of the evaluation of certification solutions for smallholders will be given. FSC’s existing solutions will be covered, with a focus on the benefits for FSC Group Certification. Next, solutions in the pipeline will be covered, addressing the impact of pilot projects and highlighting success stories.

“PEFC, a system of choice for rubber smallholders”

Presented by: PEFC

Through a comprehensive explanation of PEFC, PEFC will elaborate further on their unique bottom-up approach in standard-setting and certification. Why and how this approach makes PEFC a system of choice for rubber smallholders and all companies involved in the natural rubber supply chain. They will also showcase current collaborative projects with their national members and companies to support smallholder producers. PEFC will explain how it will benefit GPSNR members and the work that GPSNR is engaged in.

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GPSNR Working Groups Update: August 2021

It’s been a month of progress! Here are the updates from each working group:

Strategy and Objectives Working Group

While the working group did not meet this month, they are focussed on finalising the Theory of Change and organising a workshop for the same in September. The group will also continue to work on refining the platform’s external partnerships approval process. 

Smallholder Representation Working Group

After a successful onboarding workshop for Indonesian smallholders, the group is welcoming new smallholder members at GPSNR. They are also planning  similar workshops for smallholders in Srilanka and Cambodia in September. Workshops in India, Liberia, Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana are also being kept in view and will be scheduled as soon as the COVID-19 situation allows.

At the same time, the smallholders will meet to discuss GPSNR’s agroforestry position next month (in tandem with the Capacity Building Working Group). 

Policy Toolbox Working Group

This working group has received draft documents from consultants on three significant aspects of the GPSNR assurance model: the Implementation Guidance, the Reporting Requirements and the Compliance Panel Guidance. 

They are currently focussed on finalising the reporting requirements. For this, they need members to send in their feedback by 30th August. If you haven’t yet done so, please take a look at the form here. This will make it possible for us to vote on the Reporting Requirements by the General Assembly in December 2021. 

The group is also busy revising and finalising the Implementation Guidance, which will be voted on at the General Assembly in early 2021. 

Capacity Building Working Group

The group has completed an initial review of documents on agroforestry, and will now initiate a task force to develop a position on agroforestry. If you are interested in being part of the task force, please contact Aidan and Si Yuan at aidan@gpsnr.org and yeo.siyuan@gpsnr.org respectively. 

They are also starting a national capacity building subgroup in Thailand after Michelin pledged funding for key projects in the country. Should you be interested in joining this subgroup, you can also write to Aidan and Si Yuan! 

Traceability and Transparency Working Group

This working group is currently finalising the definition and acceptable levels of traceability for GPSNR and developing data collection and reporting standards together with the Policy Toolbox working group.

Shared Responsibility Working Group

As a step forward on the discussion about the long term financial model, the group has discussed the preliminary concept of a rubber trust fund. It is now seeking inputs to refine and further develop the foundations of thel model.

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