The Association of Natural Rubber Producing Countries (ANRPC) recently published a press release about its organizing the 12th edition of its Annual Rubber Conference on October 7, 2019. The Government of Indonesia is hosting the conference in Yogyakarta.

In its press release, ANRPC highlights that the smallholder-dominated natural rubber (NR) production sector has limitations to adopt the sustainability norms for NR which are initiated and largely set by the automotive tire manufacturing industry. The additional cost to adopt the prescribed practices, the cost to maintain the standards, and the abnormally high fee for the certification, make it practically difficult for the resource-poor smallholders to be on board when the world rubber industry is moving towards a sustainable value-chain. The sustainable development of any value-chain inevitably requires inclusiveness of its weakest link which is the smallholdings sector in the case of rubber value-chain. Around 90 per cent of the world supply of NR comes from the smallholdings sector. The inclusiveness of the resource-poor smallholders in the sustainability initiative may be possible only if the prescribed standards as well as the certification system are adaptable to them. In this context, the conference attempts to identify the standards and norms which are suitable for the smallholdings to adopt as well as acceptable to other segments of the industry’s value-chain.

Focused on the theme “Adaptive and Inclusive Path to Sustainable Value Chain”, the program for the conference is structured into a keynote speech, five talks and a panel discussion represented by key policymakers of NR sector in the 13 ANRPC member countries which are Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, China, India, Malaysia, Cambodia, Myanmar, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Papua New Guinea and Singapore. The attached program gives the topics of the various talks and the speakers. The event is expected to have about 350 participants from around 20 countries, representing farmers, farmer cooperatives, processors, traders, end-users, policymakers, researchers, rubber associations, investment banks, hedge funds and the media. Further details can be obtained by contacting ANRPC at anrpc.secretariat@gmail.com.

The 42nd session of the ANRPC Assembly, Fifth ANRPC Public-Private Meet, and the meetings of the Executive Committee, Information & Statistics Committee (ISC), and the Industry Matters Committee (IMC) will be held at the same venue from 8 to 12 October 2019.

Article by ANRPC.