smallholder farmers

This report by Root Capital explains how a blend of capital can help build resilience against a dwindling supply and rising demand in commodities such as coffee, cacao, and tea. The report states that investment in agriculture—perhaps more than any other sector—has the potential to bring about unprecedented change today and into the future, from food security and nutrition to environmental sustainability and economic growth. »

This report by the Rural and Agricultural Finance Learning Lab and the Initiative for Smallholder Finance captures the way the smallholder finance space currently operates by describing the key actors and the nature of their interactions, and by conceptualizing these in a new “industry model.” The report identifies market frictions across the major components of the “industry model” that continue to inhibit smallholder farmers’ access to financial services and opportunities for removing them, and rallies sector actors around the need for more collective action than ever before. »

This paper by IFAD looks at the role of agriculture in fostering inclusive and sustainable development in Sub-Saharan Africa. It discusses how improving agricultural productivity, smallholder access to markets and expanding agribusiness opportunities can accelerate transformation, investment and industrialization. The paper presents key investment and policy elements to be considered and points to the centrality of smallholders for the rural transformation process to be inclusive. »

This policy note shows to what extend mechanization efforts from Bangladesh can be used as an example for these transformations in Ghana and Nigeria. The notes elaborates on the experiences of a p Past efforts in these countries have mostly focused on the styles of machinery used in western countries or Latin American countries, where average farm sizes are much larger. In Bangladesh recent fast growth in agricultural mechanization has spread among smallholder farmers that own an average of 0.5 hectares. »

This Expert Meeting, organized by the Integrated Seed Sector Development (ISSD) Africa Program, in collaboration with partners, took place in Cape Town, 16-17 March 2016. The meeting aimed to present and discuss the findings so far of ISSD Theme 3: Matching global commitments with national realities. The meeting was divided in three sessions, each centered around one of three action learning questions. The outcomes of these discussions and consultations are briefly summarized in the report. »

This report argues that the global food system must transform to feed growing cities and that this transformation need to create opportunities for small-scale and especially female farmers. The growth of cities fuels an unprecedented demand for food, due to changing diets of people moving to cities, in combination with increase population growth, climate change. Feeding cities presents a major opportunity to improve the plight of millions of small-scale farmers and rural residents trapped in subsistence agriculture and joblessness. »