Small-scale producers and SMEs are at the heart of sustainability standards and their innovations agenda. To maximise the value of standards to producers, we need to hear from the producers themselves – what are their priorities and constraints? How has involvement in standards benefitted them? What barriers do they face? To try and answer these questions, ISEAL conducted a survey on the needs of certified small-scale producers in five countries. Joshua Wickerham, ISEAL Policy & Outreach Manager, guides us through key insights from the producer needs survey, with input from Stefano Savi from the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) and Rosario Galan from Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). We also discuss RSPO’s and FSC’s smallholder strategies and lessons learnt from the survey findings.