"The five biggest challenges facing the nut supply chain", 

Our guest panel highlighted five key challenges; labour standards, climate change, low yields, transparency and environmental and social accounting...Any business should assume there are issues with labour, says Daan de Vries, UTZ Certified. “As a general rule, farming all over the world is a low-margin business, with pressure on cost and therefore on labour conditions.”...Dan Binks, Liberation Foods CIC, says the impact of climate change on nuts is most severe in the southern hemisphere, and that companies buying nuts from small farmers there should work with them to improve their understanding of the climate...[C]ertifications, such as FLO, offering premium payments back to the producers go some way to address environmental and social concerns, but that the industry needs to promote this more with the consumer base...[Olam’s Chris Brett] says investing in processing capacity in producing countries is a triple win: for Olam, for the producers and communities as it increases local employment, and for the environment as it reduces the supply chain’s footprint...[Also refers to Sunshine Nut Company]

Full panel:

• Sunil Dahiya African Cashew Alliance
• Bas van den Brink, Sustainable Trade Initiative
• Dan Binks, Liberation Foods CIC
• Chris Brett, Olam International
• Shakti Pal, TechnoServe
• Sabrina Bosson, Fair Labor Association
• Ryan Shenk, Sunshine Nut Company
• Daan de Vries, UTZ Certified