This report presents the findings of a three-year study, funded by ISEAL, of the early impacts of the Better Cotton Initiative on smallholder cotton producers in Kurnool District, Andhra Pradesh, India.

This report presents the results of a research project with the overarching goal to examine the impact on farmer livelihoods and poverty alleviation within Indonesian coffee-growing communities as a result of processes of certification against different sustainability standards. These standards include the Common Code for the Coffee Community (4C) and the Sustainable Agriculture Network/ Rainforest Alliance (SAN/RA) standard.

Research webinar with Peter Lund-Thomsen from Copenhagen Business School on the effects of certification on farmers’ incomes, workers’ conditions and environmental pollution on cotton farms in India and Pakistan and report from DIPI India baseline study.

In this podcast, Carlos de los Rios from COSA discusses the final research report from an impact evaluation on the Impacts of Certification on Small Coffee Farmers Western Kenya, 2014-2017. The report was published in 2019. ISEAL and its members are working together on the Demonstrating and Improving Poverty Impacts (DIPI) program, to understand the contribution that certification systems can make to poverty alleviation and pro-poor development. ISEAL commissioned an evaluation to identify whether and how certification contributes to improving farmer livelihoods.

A document describing the key findings from Training Needs and Landscape  Assessment of Shrimp Sector in East Java, Indonesia, as part of the Innovations Fund project Integration of Seafood Certification and Jurisdictional Assurance Models, supported by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO).

This webinar shares the intentions and key findings behind Kering’s and Textile Exchange’s report ‘A world beyond certification – A best practices guide for organic cotton trading models’ which provides insight on the subject.

Experts from ISEAL, and ISEAL members discuss what our research is telling us about the reach, contribution and impacts of standards on smallholder farmers and what this means for future innovations and partnerships.

In this report ISEAL offers insights from three baselines of evaluations that it commissioned in 2015 and were published in June 2016

A Report produced for the ISEAL Alliance Innovations Fund project “Integrating new data to improve risk assessments and detection of forced labour vulnerability in agricultural supply chains”.

The ISEAL-funded research project Integrating new data to improve risk assessments and detection of forced labour in agricultural supply chains (2017 – 18) is an attempt to build the evidence base around monitoring and remediating forced labour in agricultural supply chains.

This methodological paper from ISEAL shares insights and lessons learned from three ongoing impact evaluations that completed their baseline in 2016 and are due for end line evaluation in 2019.

This report explores the relevance of current trends in technology to sustainability standards – from mobile data collection and the internet of things, to open data and blockchains – and proposes a roadmap for development. 

This report looks at the issues facing small certified producers and their expectations and experiences of certification, and explores how standards can address producers’ needs and priorities.

In this video, small producers report on the impact sustainability standards have had on their life. 

'The changing nature of trust and the role of credible standards' presented by Karin Kreider, ISEAL’s Executive Director, Joe Wozniak from International Trade Centre and Philip Schleifer from University of Amsterdam.

Joshua Wickerham, ISEAL Policy & Outreach Manager, guides us through key insights from the producer needs survey, with input from Stefano Savi from the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) and Rosario Galan from Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). We also discuss RSPO’s and FSC’s smallholder strategies and lessons learnt from the survey findings.

A working paper for the project “New data to detect forced labour in agriculture”.

ISEAL works to improve the credibility and impacts of sustainability standards and understanding impacts is an important strategic goal. This paper is the first attempt to draw on internal performance monitoring data of schemes and external research to analyse the reach and characteristics of smallholder farmers within ISEAL member agriculture schemes. This is the third in a series of collective reporting briefing papers researched by ISEAL as part of the ‘Demonstrating and Improving Poverty Impacts’ (DIPI) project. 

We often talk about system-level change to address root causes of poverty and imbalance of risk. This requires us to unite in different and creative ways. The Living Income Community of Practice motivates actors across sectors to help close the income gap, so that smallholders can earn a decent standard of living as a basic human right.

Ensuring resilient livelihoods and sustained employment for vulnerable communities was already a stretch pre-Covid-19. For those communities lacking a stable income, the impact has been inconceivable.