A sustainable income for farmers and nutritious, affordable food for everyone. This is what Rikolto works for.
Worldwide, strong teams of local experts are striving to answer one question: what will we eat tomorrow? This is a crucial question for consumers, farmers, agri-food companies and policy makers alike. For some, it is about the choices they make to improve our food system. For others, facing food shortages, it is a ‘literal’ question they struggle with every day. And for Rikolto, it is a means to invite everybody to join in a conversation, about finding solutions for the world’s food systems, and ensuring they are sustainable. To change the recipe of our food system, together.
Smallholder farmers are one of the key actors we work with, along with supermarkets, retailers, policy makers and consumers, to guarantee affordable, quality food for all.
Chris Claes | International Executive Director
This is what Rikolto works for.
We reach our goals by building bridges between smallholder farmer organisations, companies, authorities and other actors across rural and urban areas. Together, we create innovative ways of producing, trading, distributing and accessing nutritious, quality food, so no one is left behind.
Through our global network, we wish to inspire others to tackle with us the inter-related challenges of food insecurity, climate change, biodiversity loss, and economic inequality.
Rikolto (formerly VECO/Vredeseilanden) is an international NGO with more than 50 years’ experience in partnering with farmer organisations and food chain stakeholders across Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America.
5 regional teams run programmes in 17 countries worldwide. We’re a close-knit network of accessible and knowledgeable colleagues, willing to share experience and eager to inspire others.
Building on this experience, we are well prepared to tackle the challenges threatening our food system:
Rikolto believes family farms are a big part of the solution. Together they produce 70% of our food worldwide, but individually they're often cut out of the trade, ending up in poverty and leaving their huge potential untapped. Change on a global scale demands that food markets become more inclusive and offer value to all actors in the food chain. Smallholder farmers must be offered a fair deal.
This is why we put inclusive business at the core of our work.
Our new strategy charts a path towards sustainable food systems by focusing on interventions that can reshape the roles of multiple food system actors, from the global to local level.
Building on our expertise in creating inclusive business relationships, the strategy sets out our systems approach for working with diverse partners to strengthen selected commodity sectors - rice, cocoa and coffee - and to address the wider food system challenges of cities.
