What are partners for? How a common vision can guide successful partnerships

The year 2019, a year full of expectations, could not have started on a better footing: our partners looking for solutions and delivering results.

After all, what are partners for? And what can we call a “successful partnership”? With more than a decade of experience in building partnerships and learning from that experience, IDH understands that there are some basic elements to partnerships for them to be lasting and effective at delivering results.

2019, a year full of expectations, couldn’t have started on a better footing:  our firm partners looking for solutions and delivering results

We can speak about a few essential elements, for example: having a vision in common regarding key topics. Partners can only get on well and have a fulfilling relationship if they share the same vision on topics that are crucial to the partnership. Of course, the partners do not have to have identical minds, always thinking alike, but a shared vision about what is going to be built up within a partnership is fundamental for us to be able to achieve things.

Common values are also an important condition for success, as these values will determine how the vision will be delivered. Here, the question of ethics always speaks louder because, while ethics seems to be common sense, there are different interpretations of this in different situations. And so we can see that partnerships also are useful for getting to know the ethical values of our partners, mainly in decisive and important moments.

Finally, the trust that is built up between the parties is essential for getting results. There is no point having vision and objectives in common if you are not able to gain trust from you partner and vice versa. Once an atmosphere of trust has been built up, we can go together to the sun and back, because the sky is the limit!

In view of the huge challenge that Brazil is facing to increase food production and at the same time make the best use possible of its natural resources, it is only natural that alliances and partnerships should be set up. Each of them has its own common vision and values, in looking for solutions that have never been tried before.

We are starting 2019 in full force with our partners and alliances that will support us in the long-term vision for sustainable planning.

Produce, Conserve, Include (PCI), the mother of all the alliances, has been recognized as absolutely fundamental for the economic development of the state of Mato Grosso and is becoming a model that is likely to be copied in other regions of Brazil and around the world, has shown us that partnerships are really worth it.

There is nothing more exciting than the groundbreaking Juruena Valley compact, with its goal to “produce, conserve and include” being re-evaluated and influencing other surrounding municipalities!

By bringing investments into the regions, companies that are committed to responsible sourcing show that a large engine is starting to move. There is no doubt that the farmers from Ribeirão Cascalheira, Gaúcha do Norte and Paranatinga have realized this, as almost 300 of them are already aware of the Sustainable Production of Calves program.

Sorriso has clear delivery goals on inclusion of smallholder farmers and sustainable production, like ethanol from corn, and influences forest-planting agendas and livestock slaughter.

In Barra do Garças, the common vision amongst all partners is the search for long-term sustainable development in the municipality – an agenda to be consolidated in the next few months.

Paragominas is inaugurating the post-green municipality phase with a strong agenda in terms of regional management and the engagement of the public and private sectors.

Within this atmosphere of great positivity and innumerable challenges, IDH invites both its current and future partners to share a common vision for the sustainable development of Brazilian agriculture and livestock and to have share ethical values and trust as the basis for great achievements together.