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.