17th July 2023

Written by Sophie O’Loghlen-Vidot, Impact Funding Manager 

The Bonsucro Impact Fund (BIF) currently has seven projects supported by grants under way.  One theme that has come up time and time again is the appetite of our grantees (and our wider community) to share their experiences, learning, and challenges in implementing their projects.  

Photos by Assobari (left) and Raízen/Arable (right), two recipients of Bonsucro Impact Fund Grants

As part of my work managing the Bonsucro Impact Fund, I have been working with our monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEAL) partners, SOAS and CEBRAP, to create a space for the grantees to share and learn from each other, with a view to improving their own innovative approaches and MEAL practices. This space is called the Community of Practice.

The most recent Community of Practice meeting took place in early May 2023, with a focus on the challenges of collecting baseline data. This is the data that presents the context for a project – the  ‘status quo’ before project activities begin. As the project continues, subsequent data sets are compared to the baseline data to give a clearer picture of the project’s impact. 

During the meeting, the grantees heard from two teams that had used different data collection methods; Raízen/Arable and WWF Pakistan. They both presented their baseline data collection methods, as well as the challenges they have faced and any surprising results in the analysis of this data.  

It was great to see the grantees listening and sharing with one another. It’s clear that they are dealing with similar or the same challenges – but the solutions are always relevant to the context of the project. For example, many of the grantees have found that farmers are reluctant to join their projects due to the perceived time commitment, or because they do not want to share data about their farm activities. The issue of trust and mistrust came up in several contexts. For example, some farmers questioned how project data would be used, and whether project monitoring was akin to surveillance. Trust factors and inequality were also prevalent among grantees who were working with farmer associations (e.g. CNPR or Unión Nacional de Cañeros de México), or were associations of farmers themselves (e.g.  Assobari or Associação Dos Fornecedores De Cana Da Região De Bariri, Brazil).

We also heard that the grantees and their partners need to clearly show what is ‘in it’ for the farmers – how they could potentially benefit. Many farmers were reluctant to sign up to the projects as they already had many priorities and demands on their time. Building demonstration plots into their project plans, to show real tangible results and benefits the farmers could realise, was vital. We learnt that saving money and time, through increased yield, were big motivators for farmers to be involved. 

The grantees shared their simple context-based solutions to the challenges they faced, for example working in partnership with agriculture extension officers who are already trusted by farmers and having them assist with the rollout of new approaches. The importance of face-to-face meetings and word-of-mouth recommendations was noted by several grantees as vital for moving projects forward. Engaging with the farmers on a human level, as well as them being recognised by their peers as knowledgeable or important due to their involvement in the projects as well as training others, were valuable to the farmers.  

With trust and collaboration being key ingredients to generating lasting impact among producers, grantees are keen to work with each other to make progress. This includes WWF Pakistan and Raízen in Brazil, who are discussing forming a partnership to help them deliver their BIF funded projects, and broader work, more effectively.  Such collaboration will certainly shape the way that Bonsucro supports and funds further impact work in the future.  

The next Community of Practice session will focus on monitoring impact data to support grantees with their project’s progress reports, which we ask them to submit to us every six months. We look forward to continuing to support the grantees through this forum. It helps grantees to share and learn from each other, and provides us with insight into challenges and opportunities that exist beyond the grant reporting. As more projects start implementation, they will join the Community of Practice – we hope to continue to capture learning from across our grantees as well as share these with our membership. The Bonsucro team and our MEAL partners will use these examples to help shape the MEAL guidance and support provided in future BIF grants. 

To find out more about the projects supported by the BIF please visit the project web pages.