Rethinking Agri-Business Investments Through the Pandemic: Sustainability panel

CASA EVENT

Rethinking Agri-Business Investments Through the Pandemic: Sustainability panel

The Commercial Agriculture for Smallholders and Agribusiness programme (CASA) programme is hosting “Rethinking Agri-Business Investments Through the Pandemic”, a series of virtual convenings unpacking the response to COVID-19 for investors and SMEs in emerging markets.

The series of virtual convenings is designed for investors, investment support stakeholders and commentators in the agribusiness space to share thinking and efforts to consolidate, innovate and adapt in light of the global pandemic. The virtual events are not expected to provide definitive answers but instead to provide a platform for structured sharing and reflection, in response to the issues exercising the investor community and agribusiness sector.

The e-conference series is designed to:

  1. Identify the needs of SMEs if they are to remain investable options
  2. Showcase tools and approaches to supporting agribusiness during the pandemic developed by various stakeholders and being considered by impact investors in agri-business;
  3. Identify evidence gaps and information needs for the CASA programme to support investors through and after the pandemic
  4. Map as far as possible investment opportunities emerging from disruptive innovation

This platform will explore the underpinning issues that gave rise to the current pandemic and investigate the potential implications for investments and food safety, for example exploring the role of environmental sustainability standards for SMEs to reduce the risk of zoonotic disease transmission or pollution. Existing evidence suggests that the current pandemic is the result of lax standards in food safety and this is a trend across the globe. Scientists increasingly link food safety to the economic pressures driving biodiversity loss. If expanding supply chains and growing markets have enabled the conditions for this crisis, how do we avoid this happening again? Specifically how do we support the needs of investors with the emerging lessons? This panel will explore how investors can be responsible corporate citizens, responding to global consumer appetite without sacrificing public goods around health and environmental wellbeing, particularly in the context of emerging markets. Explicitly the discussion and resource dossier will address ideas to rebuild supply chains in ways that mitigate public health crises.


SPEAKERS

Nina Hissen

Nina Hissen

Nina is a Livelihoods Adviser for the Department of International Development. Nina currently works on agricultural policy, in particular on responsible investment in food value chains. Prior, she was the lead for DFID Kenya programming on ‘graduation out of poverty’, and worked closely with the Kenyan government on social protection policy. Before joining DFID, Nina worked for the FAO in Rome, and conducted academic research on water management, climate change and migration. Nina holds a PhD on water management and climate change in the Nile River Basin from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and the School for International Development at the University of East Anglia, UK.

Nienke Stam

Nienke Stam

Nienke Stam heads the Landscape Finance team in IDH The Sustainable trade Initiative, mobilising investment for sustainable land, water and ecosystem management, and accompanying sustainable land use investment funds &Green, AGRI3 and LDN Fund through technical assistance that supports investment readiness, maximisation of social and environmental benefits of deals and enabling data for impact and scale. Before joining IDH, Nienke worked with Triodos Facet (currently part of Palladium group) promoting investment in green and inclusive growth, as well as with the private sector in agriculture and renewable energy.

Dr Delia Randolph

Dr Delia Randolph

Delia leads research on zoonoses and foodborne disease at the International Livestock Research Institute in Kenya and the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Human Nutrition and Health. She is Professor of Food Safety Systems at the Natural Resources Institute, and contributes to research on zoonoses and foodborne disease at the International Livestock Research Institute in Kenya and the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Human Nutrition and Health.

Anneke Voss

Anneke Voss

Mrs Voss is the team leader of the Capacity Building team in GLOBALG.A.P. since 2016. The Capacity Building team is responsible for organizing a variety of workshops covering the GLOBALG.A.P. standard as well as food safety and food hygiene topics worldwide. Anneke’s team also manages the Farm Assurer Consultant program, which qualifies consultants to support farmers in obtaining and maintaining GLOBALG.A.P. certification. In addition, she is responsible for managing projects with the public and developing aid sector in developing and emerging countries. Mrs. Voss holds a Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Cologne. She has more than 8 years of experience and expertise in sustainable agriculture and smallholder capacity building measures, which she gained from her previous work as a development aid worker in the African wide cotton project COMPACI for the German Development Cooperation (GIZ) in Benin, and as a Sustainable Agriculture Manager for Bayer Crop Science in Germany.

Julian Peach

Julian Peach

Julian Peach is a partnerships, strategy and agricultural market systems expert with almost thirty years of management and technical experience working to help businesses to grow together with smallholder supply and distribution chains. He has experience with most agricultural input and output and service markets. He has particular skills in facilitating and brokering the way for businesses to achieve transformative, sustainable success at scale. His single motivation is to help rural people to improve their lives.

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DOWNLOADS

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