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Agriculture & Commodities

Featured Cases:

  • Shaping Consumer Demand for Healthier Eating

  • Guiding Chile’s Salmon Farmers toward More Sustainable Community Relations

  • Bolstering Palm Oil Value Chain Sustainability

The Challenge

Agriculture has experienced dramatic shifts over the past half century. As production and efficiency have increased, so have changes to land, soil, and water. Hundreds of millions across the globe remain malnourished yet rates of obesity and related diseases are escalating in the developed world. The complex challenge of feeding a growing global population nutritious, safe, and affordable food while doing minimal harm to the environment often leads to disputes among parties with different perspectives. Climate change threatens agriculture systems while also posing the opportunity to reduce emissions and sequester carbon.

Our Approach

Our mediators help build agreements on agriculture, resilience, commodity supply chains, and nutrition at the local, state, federal, and international levels. CBI has successfully:

  • Worked with farmers and ranchers, major agricultural companies, and advocates
  • Helped parties build new networks and programs with our assessments, strategic planning, and deep knowledge of this field
  • Coordinated across sectors to reform, refine, or even rebuild supply chains

Whether addressing dysfunction in the palm oil supply chain in Latin America or helping U.S. farmers and ranchers engage in climate-smart solutions, CBI brings the process tools and substantive expertise to support negotiation and engagement. 

Areas of Expertise
  • Agriculture and water quality
  • Agriculture and climate
  • Local, regional, and global supply chains
  • Nutrition, obesity, and public health
  • U.S. national farm and food policy
  • Global sustainable standard-setting
View cases & related resources
  • CBI worked with us on the merger of two organizations into our current coalition, a complicated process that spanned 1.5 years and involved engagement with dozens of parties. Pat’s skilled facilitation, coupled with his deep knowledge of agriculture, helped us develop a plan that had unanimous support from all involved. We now have a thriving organization, with double the number of members that we had at the time of the merger.

    Ferd Hoefner

    Senior Strategic Advisor

    National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

Get In Touch

CBI Experts:

  • Patrick Field Senior Mediator
  • Merrick Hoben Director, Washington Office / Corporate-Community Engagement Practice
  • Linkedin

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