Voluntary sustainability standards in East Africa

This report shows that adopting standards to produce staple crops like beans, maize, rice, and wheat can help achieve these regional policy objectives while protecting vital ecosystems, managing scarce resources efficiently, and supporting workers' livelihoods and rights. There is a great opportunity to use VSSs to sustainably increase the production and trade of staple crops in East Africa. Importantly, smallholder farmers stand to benefit from this growth—they form a large part of the supplier base and depend on staple crops for livelihoods and personal consumption. At the same time, such growth will reduce import dependency in the region.