🌱 CFC Annual Report 2024: Redesigning Global Trade from the Ground Up

Amsterdam, Netherlands – The Common Fund for Commodities (CFC) has published its 2024 Annual Report, unveiling a year of bold action, breakthrough innovation, and deep impact across the Global South. Amid global uncertainty and resource constraints, the CFC approved 18 transformative projects, benefiting over 196,000 smallholder farmers, while extending its support to more than 540,000 individuals, sustaining 11,800 jobs, and promoting sustainable cultivation on over 113,000 hectares of land.

At the heart of this year's achievements lies a radical belief: the future of global trade must be humanized, localized, and rebalanced.

Key Highlights from the Report:

• 🚜 ACT Fund Launched:
  The newly launched Agricultural Commodity Transformation (ACT) Fund is a USD 100 million blended finance vehicle designed to empower agri-SMEs across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Backed by a USD 10 million technical assistance facility, the fund champions Inclusive Regenerative Agriculture (IRA)—aiming to sustainably cultivate 275,000 hectares, sequester 1.6 million Mt of CO₂, and disburse USD 216 million in direct payments to farmers.
• 🔗 Humanizing the Value Chains (HVC):
  The HVC initiative is not just reform—it’s a total transformation of the value chain with “value” in the Value chain. By embedding blockchain traceability, minimum pricing, and micro-repatriation into commodity chains, CFC ensures farmers earn not only a fair wage, but a living income. As one farmer in Ethiopia put it, “For the first time, my work is valued as much as the product.”
• 🌳 Redefining Climate Finance in Peru:
  Through innovative loans instead of carbon pre-sales, the CSN+ project in Northern Peru is turning forest conservation into a community-led, revenue-generating model, linking sustainable farming, ecotourism, and carbon credit generation.
• 🧵 From Vanilla to Value Chains:
  From the cacao forests of the Amazon to the bamboo innovators of Bhutan and seagrass artisans in Bangladesh, CFC projects are revitalizing traditional industries while protecting biodiversity and enabling women-led enterprises.

A Call to Action

Despite receiving over 360 project proposals, only a fraction could be financed. Over 1,500 high-impact, shovel-ready initiatives remain unfunded.

“Behind every project is a community ready to thrive. But transformation cannot happen without trust—and trust needs capital,” said Ambassador Sheikh Mohammed Belal, Managing Director of the CFC.

CFC is now calling on governments, impact investors, philanthropies, and corporations to step forward and invest in equity—not just equality. With the right support, we can reimagine trade not as a transaction, but as a tool for equity, resilience, and shared prosperity. As the report makes clear, “poverty is not inevitable—it is engineered. And so is justice.”

📘 Download the Full Annual Report here: www.common-fund.org/annual-report-2024