Olam Agri and IDH are expanding their collaboration to develop and implement projects that improve livelihoods and advance climate-smart agricultural practices across food and feed value chains. The collaboration is formalised through a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).

The partnership builds on the strong working relationship between Olam Agri and IDH in West Africa by combining Olam Agri’s global sourcing reach, market access and operational expertise with IDH’s experience in building multi-stakeholder partnerships and data platforms.

A new initiative will be launched in Ghana through IDH’s Women in Sourcing and Enterprise (WISE) programme to support small and medium-sized enterprises within sustainable value chains. It will focus on strengthening local capacity for drought-resilient wheat varieties, improving access to market opportunities, and empowering women bakers and creating opportunities for them as part of the drive towards more inclusive value chains.

The initiative in Ghana builds on the existing partnership in Nigeria, where Olam Agri and IDH are working together to support approximately 5,000 soy farmers in Kwara State, helping to strengthen agricultural practices, improve market linkages and create pathways towards more resilient and commercially viable farming systems.

Under the collaboration, Olam Agri and IDH will further scale, develop and implement country-specific plans to empower farmers, workers, cooperatives, local enterprises, and communities across the value chains, thereby enhancing market access for the beneficiaries. Potential areas of cooperation include farmer training, women and youth entrepreneurship, guaranteed offtake arrangements subject to quality and market conditions, local processing and market development, landscape governance, ecosystem restoration and value chain infrastructure.

Olam Agri and IDH will further strengthen their collaboration by exploring food and feed project opportunities in countries beyond Nigeria and Ghana, focused on five interconnected areas:

• Using market leverage for equitable rewards: supporting fair procurement, market access and practical assistance to help producers transition towards regenerative and climate-smart agricultural practices.
• Building climate-resilient sourcing landscapes: working with local partners to strengthen sustainable production systems, environmental resilience and inclusive growth, particularly for women and smallholder farmers.
• Promoting deforestation-free value chains: supporting efforts to eliminate deforestation and land conversion from high-risk commodity value chains.
• Catalysing local food systems and sourcing: strengthening local processing, SMEs, cooperatives and market linkages to support food security, job creation and greater value addition.
• Using data and convening for scale: sharing relevant insights, tools and methodologies to support learning, outcome measurement and collective action across agricultural value chains.

Our collaboration in Nigeria and Ghana shows that meaningful progress happens when farmers, businesses, communities and institutions work together around shared goals. This MoU provides a platform to build on that progress, combining market access and operational expertise with strong local partnerships to support more resilient, inclusive and climate-smart agricultural value chains.

Saurabh Mehra,

CEO, Food and Feed – Processing and Value-added, Olam Agri