Smallholders Representation Working Group Update – November 2019

Strong, sustainable supply chains can only be achieved if the most fragile player, smallholders, are empowered. The definition of ‘smallholders’ together with engagement guideline is being finalized with the aim to have a new ordinary membership category that would allow smallholders to express their views, ideas and concerns to the other international players within GPSNR.

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With the input from the workshop in Indonesia, Thailand, Brazil (and soon Cote d’Ivoire and Vietnam), the smallholders representation working group is finalizing the definition of ‘smallholders’ which will be needed to open up a new category of membership. Recognizing the experience and effort that IRSG/SNRi had already invested in this work, Smallholders Representation Working Group invited IRSG to discuss the definition of ‘smallholders’.

While many countries have their own definition of ‘smallholders’ based on the size of their land, the Smallholders representation Working Group agreed other characteristics of smallholders (such as income provenance, level of dependency on family labour, economic constraints, etc) should also be considered.

As the definition of ‘smallholders’ are affiliated to the work scope Strategy 2 – Capacity Building Working Group, the Smallholders Representation Working Group members are working closely with Strategy 2 – Capacity Building Working Group members to ensure that there is alignment in definition between smallholders in the natural rubber supply chain and smallholders that will become GPSNR member.

In the meantime, a successful third workshop in Brazil concluded this week, with a series of learnings for GPSNR on the organisation of farmers in the region, and their expectations from the future collaboration with the Platform. The workshop also achieved good progress on the identification of potential candidates for membership in GPSNR, both by single farmers and producers associations.

November 21, 2019

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13 Global Tire Companies Co-Invest to Deliver Healthcare to 1,800 Rubber Farming Households in Côte d’Ivoire

Groundbreaking GPSNR initiative with social enterprise Elucid targets the overlooked link between farmer health and supply chain resilience

SINGAPORE, 23 April 2026: The Global Platform for Sustainable Natural Rubber (GPSNR) today announced a three-year partnership with Berlin-based social enterprise Elucid to deliver healthcare access to 1,800 rubber farmers and their households. This will benefit approximately 9,000 individuals in Côte d’Ivoire. The initiative is funded through GPSNR’s Shared Investment Mechanism (SIM) by 13 tire and rubber companies: Aeolus Tyre Co., Ltd., Apollo Tyres Ltd., Balkrishna Industries Ltd. (BKT), The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, Hankook Tire & Technology, Kumho Tire Co., Inc., Maxxis International, Nokian Tyres plc, Prometeon Tyre Group, Sumitomo Riko Company Limited, Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd., Toyo Tire Corporation, and The Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd.

The partnership addresses a gap the industry has long overlooked: the direct impact of farmer health on supply chain productivity. Medical emergencies cost Côte d’Ivoire an estimated 853 million USD in cocoa exports in 2017 alone. With many farmers cultivating both cocoa and rubber, the implications for the natural rubber sector are significant. Research from Ghana shows that enrollment of farmer households in national health insurance increases their agricultural investment in several areas by approximately 40%, according to a 2024 study published in Agricultural Finance Review.

“We talk constantly about improving yields and farm management practices, but we’ve missed something fundamental,” said GPSNR CEO Stefano Savi. “A farmer who can’t afford to see a doctor when they’re sick or who cannot go to the farm because their child is unwellcan’t be productive. Healthcare isn’t separate from supply chain resilience. It’s central to it.”

A Critical Gap for the World’s Fourth-Largest Rubber Producer

Côte d’Ivoire is critical to global rubber supply chains, yet smallholder farmers who drive production across the country’s forest regions face severe healthcare barriers. The country ranks 187th out of 195 globally for quality of care, and only 32% of essential medicines are available in the public health sector, according to a 2020 health systems assessment. While two-thirds of the population are enrolled in the national health insurance scheme (CMU) on paper, fewer than 4% actually used their insurance card in 2025, due to administrative hurdles and facility-level barriers.

When farmers lack reliable healthcare, medical emergencies force them to sell assets and abandon farm improvements — a direct risk to the supply chains that depend on them.

A Comprehensive, Four-Part Approach

The initiative combines four components:

Enrollment in CMU national insurance for all participating farmers and households
Elucid’s emergency and essential care scheme covering WHO-accredited medications and life-saving services
Quality improvements at 15 healthcare facilities serving the target communities
Community awareness programs connecting health to economic wellbeing

Elucid’s digital platform will track all data in real time, enabling transparent impact reporting throughout the project. The program aims to increase healthcare visits from fewer than 200 to over 1,800, drive CMU enrollment from less than 30% to over 90%, and prevent more than 150 catastrophic health expenditure events each year. Half of beneficiaries will be women and 20% will be children under 18.

“This is about demonstrating what’s possible when the private sector invests in making national health systems work for farmers,” said Sambhavna Biswas, Partnerships Manager at Elucid. “This model can be replicated across rubber-growing regions and adapted to other agricultural sectors. Everyone in the value chain benefits when the people at its foundation are healthy and economically secure.”

Farmer enrollment begins in August 2026, with healthcare access improvements continuing until January 2029. From December 2027, the project will transition toward long-term sustainability, building cooperative capacity to maintain health support for their members.

About GPSNR: The Global Platform for Sustainable Natural Rubber is a multi-stakeholder initiative bringing together tire manufacturers, vehicle makers, natural rubber processors and traders, and civil society organizations to develop and implement sustainability policies and practices across the natural rubber value chain. More on sustainablenaturalrubber.org

About Elucid: Elucid is a Berlin-based social enterprise providing data-driven healthcare services for farmers and workers in global supply chains across six countries and five agricultural sectors. Learn more at www.elucid.social

Media Contacts: GPSNR: Bani Bains | bani.bains@gpsnr.org;

Elucid: Sambhavna Biswas | sambhavna.biswas@elucid.de

GPSNR Secretariat April 23, 2026

News

Seeing Through to a Solution: Traceability and Transparency Tools and Technology Studies

Deforestation, land grabbing, and human and labour rights violations have been associated with the production of natural rubber. In order to transform the global natural rubber supply chain into a fair, equitable and environmentally sound one, it is crucial that we work to reduce such social and environmental risks. This is by no means an easy feat with about 6 million smallholder farmers producing around 85% of the world’s natural rubber; the complexities of the supply chain make it difficult for buyers to ensure that sustainable practices are employed for rubber cultivation and processing. Recognizing the importance of enhancing traceability and transparency in the natural rubber supply chain to support the identification and mitigation of social and environmental risks, GPSNR established the Traceability and Transparency Working Group.

Over the past few months, the Working Group has commissioned two studies around traceability and transparency tools and technology. The reports were submitted by the consultants at the end of October 2020. The findings from each report are summarized below.

Spatial Data & Mapping Tools for Detecting Deforestation and Threats to HCVS Areas in Rubber Production Landscapes

Report developed by Zoological Society of London (ZSL)

This report reviews a variety of spatial mapping tools and approaches which may be employed by GPSNR and its members to address deforestation and degradation risk in rubber supply chains.

The key recommendations from this study are that GPSNR members should pool resources to collectively commission landscape-level HCV and HCS screening for key rubber-producing countries and these should be updated periodically. Spatial data maps from this process should be made publicly available to encourage cross-sectoral collaboration on tackling deforestation.

HCV/S datasets may then be integrated into satellite monitoring platforms and combined with near-real time monitoring of deforestation and forest degradation. This will allow accurate spatial analysis of the impacts of rubber production in key forested landscapes. GPSNR members may select different satellite monitoring tools or service providers, based on their own needs and budget. For upstream actors closer to the source, satellite monitoring may allow for preventative measures to be taken at the early stages of deforestation.

The full Executive Summary can be viewed here.

Review of Transparency & Traceability Tools and Solutions

Report prepared by e-Audit Hong-Kong Ltd

This report presents options on supply chain transparency and/ or product traceability solutions that GPSNR may consider as well as recommendations to select the most suitable transparency/traceability solutions for the GPSNR initiative.

A range of solutions currently implemented in commodity industries similar to the natural rubber industry were reviewed and evaluated, resulting in the identification of several key elements that will need to be considered to select the most suitable and cost-efficient solution.

The report also considers three potential infrastructure options (centralized, hybrid and decentralized) that should be considered as they have profound implications on the range of supply chain transparency and product/batch traceability solution(s) that GPSNR may consider to adopt.

This report concludes that the technology currently available makes it possible for all GPSNR key requirements to be integrated into one single solution. However, such a centralized solution may be costly and cumbersome to implement. At this stage of development of the GPSNR initiative it is recommended that GPSNR starts implementing a more flexible hybrid solution, with a centralized infrastructure/ data hub focused on reporting and monitoring of clearly defined performance KPIs, that can be connected through APIs to existing field level risk assessment, risk mapping and traceability solutions currently implemented by GPSNR members.

The full Executive Summary can be viewed here.

GPSNR Staff January 27, 2021