 This new report examines the inclusion of smallholder farmers in modern value chains. And that means simply when small scale farmers in places like Africa, Latin America, Asia who are producing very small quantities are linked to these global networks of production. Often through big corporate brands and corporations but also through supermarket chains. So this gives smallholders the opportunity to access these what are called highly lucrative markets where they can sell their products and they can in theory receive a lot of benefits from doing so. And what this report does is we're in a way putting the microphone to people working in that sector and asking them, well, is that all true? Is that all the case? Has it delivered these types of benefits? And what we're hearing in this report and what we write in the report is there's lots of rumblings and there's lots of concerns and questions from people within the sector about the effectiveness of these linkages between smallholders and these global value chains. So this report prompts a host of new questions about whether this has been the right tool for the right problem. This is an essential question of development for many years is how do you develop rural areas? So poverty, low productivity, access to technologies, this has been a perennial problem of development. How do you modernize and bring markets and how do you bring development into rural areas? And from about 20 years or so, the solution has been, well, to do that, farmers are stuck in this low productivity, low yielding, low income cycles of producing very basic food staples. So if only we were able to link them to highly profitable markets, that would change the game. That's the theory and that is why it was pushed. The idea was if the farmer is able to sell instead of to the local regional wholesale market, if they sell to Tesco or if they sell to Unilever, then they might get a much bigger, a much better price and a better slice of the profits. And what I see is interesting about this is that to do that is difficult. And so farmers need help to do it because complying with the standards of these big networks is difficult. So the whole inclusion program is about supporting farmers to be able to do that effectively. What we found is that basically there's too many hopes and too many ambitions hinging on this issue of smallholder inclusion. So yes, farmers are selling into this market, some of them are certainly, but it hasn't really brought all the benefits that it was supposed to bring, higher profits, income, jobs, investment. There have been some benefits to some farmers, but mostly to farmers that were already rich or were already better off. It hasn't really brought big benefits to the poor farmers. And there were also ambitions and expectations that this was going to be a game changer in terms of women empowerment, but we also haven't seen that. We've seen that women and gender inequalities really, really persistent even when farmers build a selling to these markets. And the other thing that was hoped for was it will that is that it would have big environmental benefits that by linking to these modern sophisticated markets in environmental degradation could be reversed. It could produce in more sustainable ways. And we actually haven't seen a lot of progress in that area either. So it's incomes, it's gender, it's environment where the ambitions were high and the delivery seems to be well short of what was expected. What we found is that this topic is moving in a really interesting direction, which is the industry and the sector insiders realize everything I just said. They know they they themselves have prompted these questions. And so what is interesting is to see where they're looking at for for signposts for for where to invest and where to go next. And the big one that we see is actually the recognition that it's local informal domestic food markets that might be the solution and that might be the answer. So rather than having to sell to the test goals or the uni leaders, as I said, the it might be that selling to a neighbor selling in their local market actually is a more profitable endeavor that it presents perhaps less hassle for farmers. They get paid in cash. They can sell all sorts of qualities we are having to worry too much about standards and and they get paid quickly. So so so the appeal of these of these global chains, I think is being lost a bit. And it's really this this informal markets where where where the action seems to be, but the trick a bit and where I think investors and donors might be wanting some guidance is they don't have a lot of experience working with this more informal side of the market and obviously it's easier to work through a big business like Unilever than it is to work through a more messy intermediaries wholesalers of traditional markets but I think what with the right tools. The investment in this in this what is often called the hidden part of the supply chain can can provide a real effective way of helping farmers and by the way helping the whole lot of other people who are involved in food trade.