From Indonesia: Living Income & Supply Chain Resilience

In the first week of November 2025, VOCAL joined a Living Income Community of Practice (LICOP)-facilitated learning journey in Indonesia beginning with a field visit to Lampung to observe Nestlé’s work on regenerative agriculture, coffee sourcing, and women’s entrepreneurship. Seeing these initiatives firsthand, and hearing from the people implementing them, set the stage for a two-day learning workshop in Jakarta focused on pathways to improve smallholder incomes across commodities.

 

On the second day, VOCAL facilitated a panel on Living Income and Supply Chain Resilience, drawing on the core message that achieving a living income is not only a human rights imperative but also essential for the long-term stability of global supply chains.

 

During the panel, we highlighted that supply chain resilience depends on the ability of all actors to manage volatility and uncertainty, whether from climate disruptions, compliance costs, currency fluctuations, price swings, or shifting trade flows. These risks are not theoretical; they are already reshaping production, access to capital, food security, and market dynamics across the region.

 

Panelists emphasized that resilience begins with truly understanding farmers’ conditions, namely their: living standards, cost structures, revenue opportunities, and the barriers they face. Farmers are not just suppliers; they are environmental stewards, forest protectors, water guardians, and the frontline of climate impacts. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Supporting farmers to withstand known risks strengthens the entire system.

 

Across the discussion, a clear theme emerged: the need for consistent, scaled value-sharing through remunerative prices, production investments, data access, and support systems that allow farmers to invest in regenerative and resilient practices. This creates what Ashlee described as a “regenerative economic loop”, where value shared with farmers circulates back into stability, sustainability, and risk reduction for all supply chain actors.

 

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