Effective engagement with small-scale producers is key to achieving fair and lasting outcomes. This guide offers practical support for sustainability systems and their partners to strengthen how they listen to, work with, and learn from producers across different contexts.
Co-developed with the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), it brings together tools and approaches developed in the past ten years. It focuses on helping organisations better understand producer priorities, build trust, and support more meaningful participation in decisions.
The guide is structured around 5 core strategic objectives essential for scaling reach and impact:
- Identifying who to engage: understanding the full landscape of actors, including household members, youth, and marginalised producers typically excluded from formal networks.
- Understanding priorities and constraints: Grounding initiatives in the lived realities and capacities of producers to ensure support programmes create enabling conditions rather than additional burdens.
- Gathering input and building trust: Implementing transparent, accessible, and responsive avenues for input that strengthen accountability between producers and market actors.
- Supporting meaningful influence: Creating opportunities for producers to co-design initiatives and shape decisions that affect their lives.
- Sustaining relationships: Moving toward long-term collaboration and learning, supported by frameworks for data equity and sovereignty.
This material has been funded by UK International Development from the UK government; however, the views expressed do not necessarily reflect the UK government's official policies.
