Olam Vietnam established a sustainable black pepper supply chain project in 2013 to certify farmers in sustainable pepper production. They provided training and assistance to 98 farmers to achieve Rainforest Alliance certification in 2014. The operation is inclusive by guaranteeing farmers can sell their entire produce to Olam at a premium price while allowing them to sell elsewhere. Olam works with a farmers' cooperative and local buying agent for transactions. The business aims to gradually expand the number of participating farmers while maintaining certification and farmer freedom to sell to other buyers. Recommendations include allowing FDI companies to contract directly with farmers, providing initial financial support to incentivize participation, and developing infrastructure to scale up the project.

1. Olam Vietnam
Sustainable Black Pepper Supply Chain

2. Brief description of the business
• Olam International was established in 1989
with 1 product in 1 country.
• Olam entered Vietnam spices in 2002, and
has since become a global market leader in
spices and vegetable ingredients.
• Olam Vietnam Ltd (Spices) started the pilot
project in 2013 to establish a Sustainable
Pepper Supply Chain in Vietnam
• 98 farmers supported to achieve Rainforest
Alliance Certification (RFA) for sustainable
pepper production in 2014
– Location: Chau Duc District, Baria-VT Province,
Vietnam

3. What makes the operation inclusive?
• Benefits to Producers & Olam:
• Services provided to farmers:
– GAP Training; SAN Standard training & documentation
– Regular/on-demand Agronomy & Pest/disease information
– Assistance to build waste disposal pits, First Aid kits and Labour safety equipment
etc.

4. What makes the operation inclusive?
Multi-stake holder engagement
- Olam has signed dual contract with Farmers’ Cooperative & Local Buying Agent
- Olam guarantee s for buying at the daily market price with 2% premium
- All quantity must be channeled though the approved LBA & farmers get paid immediately
- Farmers are free to sell their crop in the open market & Crop failure risk is on the farmers

5. The business sense of the inclusiveness
• Challenges
– Initial apprehension of the farmers in joining such a sustainable project initiative
– Changing the old habits/practises of the farmers
– Unwillingness of the Customers to pay additional premium
– Farmers not bound by contracts to participate fully in the project and supply to Olam
– Predatory buying by competition from the project farmers
• Inclusive Goals
– Farmers are assured of being able to sell entire produce at a premium
– Improved living conditions & environment creating a deeper involvement of the farmer household
– Regular agronomy & price information availability; fast/accurate intervention possible in case of
onset of disease/pest
– Market Intelligence - Olam gets a group of farmers whose pulse it can sense & also closely track
the pepper crop throughout the year
• ROI
– Reduction of farmer operating costs by 10-15%.
– Too early but we expect better realisations in future for sustainable and residue free pepper

6. Innovation and scaling
• Business Model
– No direct contract or business transaction with any of the
farmers; MOU signed with Farmers’ co-operative instead
– The model developed ensures that all business transactions
are made through a local licensed agent
– Expert farmers appointed as Group Leaders for assisting
Olam in group administration & monitoring
– Daily price info from Olam made available to farmers
– Farmers are free to sell to anyone but when selling to Olam
they get a 2% premium
– Olam bears all the cost of training & certification and
maintains the RFA certificate in its name
Farmmers Co-
operative
Farmer
(Group of
Farmers)
Group
Leaders
Olam's
Agronomy
Team
Olam's
Sourcing
Team
Olam
Factory
Processing
Global
Customers
Olam's Buying
Agent
Olam
• Potential
- Potential for scale up is available; we can increase number of farmer groups and extend it to all nearby communes in the district
- Total of 4K farming households are in the district with more than 6000 mt production
- Our strategy is to gradually increase the size of the farmer groups (by more than 50% in the first 3 years)
- This year 2015, planned addition of 72 new farmers that will take the total to 170 RFA certified farms
• Constraints
- Govt. policy of no direct contact with farmers by a FDI company
- Involvement of too many middle parties would lead to complexity for big scaling up of the project
- We have bore the cost of premium in the initial years
Sustainable Pepper 2013 2014 2015
Project Status
Project
Launched
RFA
Certified
Project
Scale Up
Number of participating
farmers
110 98 170
Total farm area under
sustainable production (HA)
NA 94 164
Total Sustainable Pepper
produced (MT)
NA 296 450

7. Recommendations
• Policy makers:
– FDI companies should be allowed to contract & procure
directly from the farmers
– Provincial government should have targets to achieve
sustainable production
• Support for Scaling up
– Built a successful template on a small scale – multi stake
holder engagement is required for scaling it up.
– The key support required is for increased monetary
compensation and training to farmers in the initial years –
through customer linkages, donor linkages etc.
• Setting up infrastructure in terms of warehousing, logistics etc.
• Full fledged agronomy team
• Support for Price Premiums in the initial years
– Post a couple of years, farmers would be convinced about
sustained yields at reduced costs.