Olam International Limited: Inclusive, Sustainable, and Connected Coffee Value Chain (Subproject 2)

TA NO.: 9521-REG

Contract name: Olam International Limited: Inclusive, Sustainable, and Connected Coffee Value Chain (Subproject 2) (51139-004)

Contract description:

The project is designed around the registration of 6,500 new farmers into the Olam Farmer Information System (OFIS). This requires building on-the-gournd relationships with farmers and collecting data through a baseline and annual surveys. Information collected should be used to design training programs including Good Agricultural Practices, Integrated Pest Management, and Climate Smart Agriculture. The setting up and running of a series of coffee demo plots will provide accurate information on local coffee growing conditions, thus informing training content and providing training sites for farmers.

Farm level demonstration plots will be broadly modelled a World Coffee Research methodology being used locally, with the following characteristics:

Located on individual farmers’ land and broadly representative of size / growing conditions faced by other farmers in the immediate vicinity;

Managed according to a design that is centrally coordinated and that involves ‘side-by-side’ application of different treatments / practices.

Supported by careful data collection and monitoring to enable clear evaluation of the economic returns of different ‘improvements’ or changes in farming practices.

Providing clear visual evidence to nearby farmers, and micro-data for more aggregated analysis.

OFIS will be used to generate individual farm management plans and the project will supply inputs and advice to implement these effectively. Improvements in productivity, coffee quality and farmer livelihoods are key measures of success. (Organic) certification and/or OLC certification may be useful tools for delivering/measuring these.

The firm will report to the ADB project officer through the assignment team leader and will perform the following:

Output 1: Inclusive coffee supply chain established

Support quality improvements and market linkages (certification if appropriate) leading to livelihood improvements of new farmers: 6,500 in Timor-Leste.

Pilot smallholder specialty coffee traceability program in 10 cooperatives or farmer groups in Timor-Leste.

Farmer-to-farmer best practice exchanges facilitated by training farmer-instructors: 400 in Timor-Leste.

Training of farmers on gender inclusion and elimination of child labor: 6,500 in Timor-Leste.

Training of famers in financial literacy: 6,500 in Timor-Leste.

Output 2: Environmentally sustainable and climate resilient supply chain established

Training in climate smart agriculture to farmers, including (i) adaptation strategy for temperature increase and precipitation change, (ii) water harvesting and drip irrigation, and (iii) conservation agriculture: 6,500 in Timor-Leste.

Training in good agricultural practices to farmers, including (i) replanting/rejuvenation, (ii) pruning, (iii) integrated pest management, (iv) intercropping, and (v) harvest and post-harvest solutions: 6,500 in Timor-Leste.

Establishment of a network of 50 trial and demonstration plots across the central, district, and village levels to test and demonstrate appropriate methodologies for rehabilitation, replanting, pruning, composting and soil management and integrated pest management.

Output 3: Smallholder coffee farmer access to information and services expanded

Enroll all participating farm households (total 6,500) in the Olam Farmer Information System (OFIS) and complete baseline and periodic farm surveys, record ongoing training and farmer support, and personalized farm management plans to all participating households.

Provide an ‘OFIS Window’ - a data platform giving transparency on project activities and progress and hold regular knowledge sharing sessions with government and industry stakeholders.

Conduct feasibility study and pilot the use of OFIS as a tool for the wider coffee sector renovation program in Timor-Leste.

Coordination with selected external partners on design and implementation of a structured evaluation of different training approaches and methodologies;

Assessment of overall project impacts by analyzing household income and livelihood data from OFIS and other relevant data sources.

Pilot financial inclusion program by using OFIS to connect farmers to formal financial institutions: 400 in Timor-Leste.

This assignment is for Timor-Leste only. However, under the Project, three similar assignments are expected. Each project country (i.e., Timor-Leste, PNG, Viet Nam, Indonesia) will have a separate contract. For efficiency, consulting firms are encouraged to bid for more than one of the four contacts.