When Communities Lead: The Cooperative Model at Work in Madagascar
Alicia Simmons – Director of Sustainability and Communications at Frontier Co-op
Before my most recent trip to Madagascar, my understanding of Fairtrade was as a powerful tool for supporting farmers and communities - but I had no real idea how deeply its impact could extend into environmental stewardship. I learned about it from a chance encounter that led us to Monsieur Bevita Stephano, a vanilla farmer from the Tafitasoa Cooperative in Madagascar’s Sava region.
Madagascar is a curious wonderland. It's an unrepeatable experiment, a set of animals and plants evolving in isolation for over 60 million years. - Sir David Attenborough
Madagascar is a wild and beautiful country. I was fortunate to take a trip there in July this year to capture the story of the work our partners are implementing in the region, and the impact that it’s had in the cooperatives we’re investing in.
A long-term investment
It was a challenging story to tell. The project we were documenting has three major components:
- regenerative organic agroforestry
- village savings and loan associations (VSLAs)
- biodiversity and conservation of natural resources.
The idea is that each of these elements complements one another. Investments in shorter-term interventions like crop diversification and regenerative organic agroforestry can help with income diversification and stability, improved yields for food crops, and improving the health and resilience of smallholder farmers’ land in the face of increasingly frequent and destructive climate-related natural disasters.
VSLAs further support that work by strengthening both economic and social ties; helping communities save and grow their earnings, invest in entrepreneurial activities that strengthen household financial resilience, and provide a mechanism for people to support their neighbors and peers in times of need through a social fund.
As these communities become more resilient, farming families feel more stable and can meet their household needs year-round, they’re better set up to take a longer view on their role in protecting the surrounding natural resources they rely on for building materials, fuel, and food. Farmers are better positioned to make investments in their surrounding environment, protecting the endemic biodiversity that the region economically depends on for trade and ecotourism, and rebuilding the forests that have been sacrificed for generations to make space for more farmland.
Telling a complex story
Each of these topics could fill a documentary series. Our challenge was to tie them all together into one coherent narrative over a ten-minute video.
In our first days of filming, we had some wonderful conversations with people who had become Lead Farmers in their cooperatives. These leaders take on the role of teaching Follower Farmers in their community the skills they’ve learned, helping them problem-solve and implement regenerative practices on their own small parcels of land. These Lead Farmers were also often participants or even leaders within their respective VSLAs, and it was clear how these two pieces of the puzzle connected.
However, we realized we were still missing a clear link between the farmers’ work in regenerative organic agriculture and the protection of the region’s unique biodiversity. It wasn’t enough to have an academic or implementer’s perspective. What we really wanted was someone who was living this work every day, who understood it, and could convey the importance of how this work connects.
Then we met Stephano.
Dr. Lloyd Blum, who leads our implementation team with Virginia Dare Madagascar, mentioned Stephano as a potential additional interview to tie these pieces together. Stephano is a vanilla farmer and Lead Farmer responsible for teaching the next cohort of regenerative farmers in his cooperative. He’s also the secretary of his VSLA, and critically, the environmental lead for the cooperative’s Fairtrade certification.
He was our missing piece to tie this work together.
Fairtrade certified cooperatives agree to adhere to Standards that evolve in rigor as their certification matures. As they progress, cooperatives are required to meet strict environmental standards related to agroecological practices to protect soil health and biodiversity and prevent deforestation. This is especially critical in Madagascar where more than 17 million acres of forest have been lost since the 1950s. Stephano is charged with ensuring his cooperative follows these measures and observes practices that comply with the certification’s strict standards.
His co-op, Tafitasoa, has gone far beyond that requirement. They’ve taken it upon themselves to invest their Fairtrade Premium in a project to replant a section of forest near their community that was previously cut down for farmland. In the last three years, Tafitasoa has planted 18,000 native trees, traveling to this deforested plot once per quarter to tend to the saplings and planting additional trees each year.
The cooperative model at work
Seeing this kind of transformation across the co-ops we visited was such a re-enforcement for me that real change can happen when a community comes together to create it from the ground up.
There are no top-down interventions at play here, just people accessing the knowledge, tools and resources they need to get a foothold – and then choosing to reinvest in themselves, each other, and protecting and regenerating the natural resources they depend on.
This is what the cooperative model is meant for; bringing people together with shared values and shared goals to build something bigger than any one of them could do on their own.
There are countless types of cooperatives around the world – each serving the unique needs of their member-owners. At Frontier Co-op, we’ve seen this model at work across many of the countries from which we source. From Central America to South Asia and Africa, each community proves that they can collectively build a stronger economy and a more resilient future for their members while protecting the natural resources around them.
This connection to the cooperative model is why we at Frontier Co-op have committed to Fairtrade certification. Governed by the cooperative principle of democratic control, and driven by concern for community, Fairtrade-certified co-ops give smallholder farmers access to resources and support, and provide farmers autonomy in a competitive global market. Paired with Fairtrade Minimum Prices and the Fairtrade Premium, the cooperative structure can be a driver for economic stability and social health in farming communities around the world.
And that matters now more than ever.
Smallholder farmers face an uneven playing field
The 600 million smallholder farmers who make up more than 30% of our global food supply are facing an ever-increasing threat to their livelihoods. Climate change makes these farmers, who operate on less than five acres of land, increasingly vulnerable to drastic changes in weather patterns and water cycles, and the increasing frequency and intensity of devastating natural disasters.
Add to that a global race to the bottom for commodity pricing that creates untenably volatile market dynamics, and economic success and stability begin to feel far outside of their control. These smallholder farmers are fighting a battle that’s designed for them to lose.
But there is reason for hope.
Companies and consumers who want to help change that reality for these critical stakeholders have a few key tools available. Consumers are increasingly curious and aware of the human and environmental impacts of products they’re purchasing, and they expect more from the companies who sell them.
Third-party certifications like Fairtrade lay much-needed ground rules for fair and responsible trade practices. They establish price minimums based on what it takes to responsibly grow, harvest, and process crops – paying laborers fairly, using responsible agricultural practices, and not diminishing the natural resources around them. Then they layer on a premium, helping communities reinvest in infrastructure, education, social services, sustainable business or agricultural practices, or even direct payments back to farmers.
But certification alone isn’t the answer, nor is the cooperative model on its own. Real change requires us as consumers, companies, and brands to buy into this model and use our power and influence to create a more just and resilient food system.
Together, we can begin to shift the balance of power in global supply chains – creating greater equity for the farmers who are at the heart of it all.
That’s what I saw in Madagascar: farmers teaching farmers, neighbors investing in one another, and communities restoring their soils, replanting their forests, and protecting the biodiversity around them.
The global supply chains we all depend on can be more than transactional. They can be relationships built on shared responsibility and mutual respect.
They can create economic opportunities that strengthen communities, all while protecting the natural resources our world depends on.
No single company, certification, or cooperative can solve the challenges we’re facing alone. But when farmers have a voice and the resources to invest in themselves and their communities, when credible standards help to hold us all accountable, and when businesses use their buying power to support more sustainable systems, we can start to create real change.