For the past 10 years I have dedicated myself to monitoring and evaluating the UTZ sustainable agriculture standard and program. Since the merger of both organizations this has become Rainforest Alliance's sustainable agriculture (and chain of custody) standard and program. The M&E of this certification program is currently housed within RA's DMERL department (Design, Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Leaning). To evaluate the effectiveness of our certification program we analyse in-house data, commission evaluation and learning studies and collaborate with academic researchers and value chain actors, e.g. by sharing or pooling data, or commissioning joint research.