The agri-food journey from box-ticking to real resilience
Global food systems are under unprecedented pressure. They are expected to feed a growing population, provide economic opportunities across continents, and adapt to the realities of climate change. Yet, at the same time, they contribute to some of the world’s most pressing challenges, including deforestation, carbon emissions, labour rights violations, and governance gaps.
The agri-food sector can no longer afford to treat these issues in isolation. A narrow focus on “E” (environmental) factors or on single commodities risks overlooking the deeply interconnected nature of food supply chains. What is needed now is a holistic approach to ESG due diligence that connects environmental, social, and governance dimensions into one coherent framework.
That is why the release of a Meaningful Stakeholder Engagement Guidance matters now. It supports companies in addressing these risks in practice by strengthening engagement with workers, producers, communities, and other core stakeholders, helping companies understand how social and environmental risks intersect and manifest on the ground. Tailored to the food and agriculture sector, the guidance enables companies to focus on the issues that matter most to affected stakeholders and to strengthen their responses.
From fragmented solutions to holistic ESG
For too long, companies have relied on a patchwork of tools: certification schemes for specific commodities, third-party audits for social compliance, and voluntary environmental reporting frameworks. Each may be fit for purpose individually, but none is designed for multidimensional, end‑to‑end due diligence. The result is duplication, blind spots, and a false sense of progress.
This is especially visible in agri-food. A company sourcing soy, coffee, and cocoa may be expected to navigate multiple standards, audits, and traceability systems, each with different methodologies and verification requirements. When that happens, compliance can become a box-ticking exercise while the underlying issues, from land rights disputes to biodiversity loss, remain insufficiently addressed.
The regulatory direction of travel makes this even clearer. The EU Regulation on Deforestation-Free Products (EUDR), the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), and the upcoming Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) are not just asking where products come from. They are pushing companies to show how risks are identified, managed, and addressed across environmental, social, and governance dimensions. In other words, integration is no longer optional.
The momentum for sustainable trade
This shift is not just about avoiding risks; it is about capturing opportunities. Sustainable trade can drive resilience, build consumer trust, and attract investment. Increasingly, financial institutions are tying capital to ESG performance, while consumers are rewarding transparency and accountability.
One clear example is the growing demand for traceability. Businesses and consumers alike want visibility from farm to shelf. That means tracking not only whether a product is deforestation-free, but also whether farmers were paid fairly, whether workers’ rights were respected, and whether governance systems are in place to enforce standards consistently. The momentum for traceability shows that the market is moving beyond isolated metrics toward comprehensive accountability.
Placing people at the centre
Critically, this momentum must include people. Farmers, workers, and Indigenous communities are not just “stakeholders”; they are rightsholders whose lives are directly shaped by agri-food supply chains. Yet their voices are often missing from sustainability frameworks.
This is precisely why the new Meaningful Stakeholder Engagement (MSE) Guidance, written primarily by Oxfam and co-developed and co-financed by AIM-Progress, amfori, Ethical Trading Initiative, Ethical Trade Sweden, Fair Labor Association, and the Food Network for Ethical Trade, is so timely. The guidance gives companies practical direction on how to embed rightsholders in human rights and environmental due diligence processes. That matters because, without meaningful engagement, due diligence risks becoming a technical exercise disconnected from the people it is meant to protect.
At amfori, we help companies turn due diligence from a reporting obligation into a practical approach to responsible trade. Through our products and tools, capacity building, collaboration platforms, and engagement with supply chain partners, we support members in strengthening ESG risk management, improving visibility across supply chains, engaging suppliers and rightsholders more effectively, and addressing environmental and human rights risks in a more integrated way. This is the kind of support businesses need if they are to move beyond fragmented compliance and build more resilient agri-food supply chains.
From compliance to transformation
The choice facing the agri-food sector is no longer between action and inaction. It is between treating compliance as the finish line or using this moment to build supply chains that are more resilient, more accountable, and better equipped to respond to interconnected ESG risks. In our view, the companies that take the second path will be far better positioned for the future.
For companies, the path forward means:
- Integrating ESG holistically: treating environmental, social, and governance factors as interdependent.
- Investing in traceability: not just for commodities, but across entire value chains.
- Engaging rightsholders meaningfully, ensuring that farmers and communities are part of the solution.
- Collaborating through collective platforms to align tools, share knowledge, and scale solutions.
Sustainable trade in agri-food is no longer a niche discussion, and resilience cannot be built through siloed compliance alone. The release of the Meaningful Stakeholder Engagement Guidance is an important opportunity to raise ambition and make due diligence more practical, inclusive, and effective. The question now is not whether companies need to change, but how quickly they are prepared to do so and with whom they will work to make that change credible.
