Lifting Farmers Out of Poverty in Honduras
My family has been farming in Honduras for generations. In fact, at one time, my father was the largest cotton producer in the country, and all of my siblings and I studied agriculture while at university. So we know the important role that agriculture plays in lifting communities out of poverty, solving hunger issues and […]
Brewing up Success for Tanzanian Coffee Farmers
By Ciara O’Sullivan, VSO VSO volunteer Joseph Ochuma is an Agronomist working with Karagwe Development and Relief Services (KADERES). KADERES is an NGO based in the Kagera region of North West Tanzania. Joseph started his current placement in 2012, although he was not new to VSO having previously volunteered at VSO Malawi working with the […]
Helping Indian Smallholder Farmers Through Partnerships
Imagine you’re a farmer in rural India. You work on less than an acre of land, and your soil lacks the nutrients needed to grow a successful crop. Water is scarce outside of the monsoon season, when torrential rainfall can damage crops and wash away valuable soil and nutrients. You don’t have regular access to […]
Divine Chocolate: Empowering Women Cocoa Farmers
An interview with Charlotte Borger, Communications Director, Divine Chocolate 1. How does Divine Chocolate work with women in your supply chains? (If you have any specific examples of women being empowered by project(s) you have run, or as a result of your efforts, please mention here). Divine Chocolate is a UK based Fairtrade chocolate company […]
Boosting the Livelihoods of Dairy Farmers
The final report looks at a five-year market development project in Malawi, funded by Accenture that finished in 2014. The project addressed the bottlenecks and opportunities in the dairy industry in Malawi, where inefficient smallholder production (which accounts for 80% of the domestic milk supply) is contributing to the fact that Malawi has the lowest […]
Investment in Mining, Opportunities for Farmers?
One sunny morning I’m talking to Mr Kimono Wendo, a Congolese refugee and farmer living in Meheba Refugee Settlement in the North-Western Province of Zambia. Mr Kimono tells me of his 17 year struggle to provide food for his family by growing maize in the rainy season and small patches of vegetables in the dry […]
Local Investments for Local Farmers
Tanzania is a country of farmers. Most farmers own less than one hectare of land to grow produce to feed their families, whatever surplus they generate is used to fund their children’s education, healthcare and family emergencies. Small holder farmers are already vulnerable to crop failure, drought and poverty and this will be confounded by […]
Strengthening Public Extension Service Delivery to Farmers in Bangladesh
Mahmud Zaman explains how the LAN project aims to increase farm productivity and efficiency. A recent case study published by Katalyst, Improving Public Agricultural Extension Services in Bangladesh Using the M4P Approach, has attracted interest from a wide range of readers and the BEAM Exchange has organised a webinar to discuss the topics and share […]
Improving Smallholders Farmers’ Access to Fertilizers in Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa represents 10% of the total global population, yet cereal crop yields are only one-third as high as in developing Asia and one-tenth as high as in the United States. Because of such low agricultural productivity – the lowest in the world, the continent spends roughly US$35 billion a year on food imports. The […]
Linking Small Holder Farmers in Africa to Global Consumers
The first investment made by CDC’s new equity investment team was made in the autumn of 2012 when CDC provided US$32.5m to the founders of Export Trading Group (ETG). ETG is an African agribusiness with operations in crop buying, warehousing, distribution and merchandising that employs over 7,000 people. THE FIRST EQUITY INVESTMENT UNDER NEW STRATEGY […]
Improving Economic Conditions For Smallholder Farmers
Xylem’s Saajhi Stepping Pump was created to significantly enhance the daily operations of rural smallholder farmers across the globe. The Saajhi pump features self-priming diaphragm technology, small overall dimensions, a tilt and transport design, and simplified maintenance to ensure efficient use for all farmers. The design not only makes Saajhi easy to use but also […]
Business Solutions to Empower Smallholder Farmers
Most smallholder farmers do not grow enough food to last the year. Once their food runs out, many farm families experience what is referred to as a “hunger season” – typically a six-month period of time of meal skipping and meal substitution. This plays a major role in child deaths: one in 10 children die […]
How Do You Sell KnowledgeTo Smallholder Farmers?
iDE has over 30 years of experience working with smallholder farmers in Africa, Asia and Latin America. As a result we know two things: If smallholders are to transition from subsistence farming to the production of high-value fruits and vegetables for the market they need access to low cost agricultural technologies, such as a drip […]
Innovations to Protect Farmers from Climate Risks
Farmers in India are accustomed to a certain amount of weather extremes. Much of Indian agriculture is oriented around monsoon seasons that regularly feature torrential rains. But reports from the World Bank and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warn that, as climate change begins to alter weather patterns, growing conditions in the […]
Why Cheap Bananas Threaten Farmers Futures
To mark Fairtrade Fortnight and the Make Bananas Fair campaign. Michael Gidney, CEO of the Fairtrade Foundation, explains why we need to make sure all bananas are sourced fairly and ethically in the UK. I have just come back from visiting banana producers in Colombia. Along the humid tropical coast bananas seem to be everywhere […]
From Bean to Bar, Putting Farmers First
Charley Wheelock founded Woodblock Chocolate with a commitment to trading fairly with cacao growers in the Caribbean Islands and South America. That direct trade relationship–a deeply personal approach to business in which Woodblock builds relationships with the first rung on the value chain–is imbedded in the company’s DNA. “The good you can do with cacao […]
Local Bank Financing for Smallholder Farmers
Over two billion of the world’s poorest people live in households that depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. The 450 million smallholder farmers within that group are a linchpin to global poverty-reduction. Yet most smallholders lack access to finance, holding them back from producing larger crop yields of higher quality to propel both economic growth […]
Making Markets Work for Smallholder Farmers
John Ngari farms a seven acre plot in Mbere Kenya. In a recent conversation he remarked that ‘It is an eye opener for us that farming can be a business. My sons can enter farming as a business just like any other. What I am looking for is to have my own, small-scale industry so […]