Solidaridad, an international NGO working on socio-environmental issues in the Global South, in particular on agricultural commodities such as coffee, cocoa, palm oil, etc., wants to ‘reclaim sustainability’ on behalf of smallholders worldwide. To initiate a meaningful debate within society, Solidaridad has committed itself to publishing regularly a state-of-the-art report in which the position, problems and challenges of smallholder farmers who are at the bottom of global value chains are presented.

The UM team scrutinized Solidaridad’s perception-based research approach, its problem definition, questionnaire, and data-analysis techniques.

Frederik Claasen (Head of Policy, Solidaridad) stated, “Even though the report is not primarily scientific, it is important to build analysis and conclusions on a strong theoretical and methodological framework. I'm really happy how the academics of UM supported Solidaridad on this matter and will continue to do so when we analyze the data”.

The UM team that conducted the review are Ron Cörvers (FSD spearhead lead), Verena Bitzer (MSI), Alex Grigoriev (DAD), Karsten Mau (ALGEC), Rozali Oleko (MSCM/BISCI), Jeroen van Wijk (MSM), and Grant Davis (BISCI) who supported the project.

Thanks to FSD, new cooperation between different research groups at SBE has been initiated.