News
AgDevCo, in collaboration with The MasterCard Foundation and UKAID, launched the Smallholder Development Unit (SDU) to work with rural agricultural enterprises to develop equitable outgrower schemes that will boost productivity and incomes for half a million smallholder farmers.
The schemes featured represent a cross-section of value chains, from high-value horticulture (bananas) to commodity crops (maize and sugarcane), small livestock (broilers), and seed (flowers). Understanding the lessons of these schemes and why they have been successful will help to inform the design of new outgrower schemes, minimise mistakes, and ensure both companies and growers reap the benefits.
New investment will bring irrigation and access to export markets for local farmers.
Four years ago, AgDevCo took a pioneering risk by investing half a million dollars in a newly formed smallholder farmer co-operative, called the Phata Co-operative, in southern Malawi.
Kigali Farms grows high quality mushrooms for the regional markets and supports over 1,700 smallholder producers.
Phata Sugarcane Outgrowers Cooperative is replicating the very successful first phase of its business plan by expanding its membership by an additional 880 farmers.
Afri-Industries Limited aims to revive Malawi’s groundnut export industry, with benefits for tens of thousands of smallholder farmers.
An overview of AgDevCo updated in June 2016
Ilobezi Limited aims to provide a reliable market for smallholder cattle and sunflower seed in Zambia’s Southern Province. The company, Ilobezi Limited, is a growing feedlot purchasing cattle from indigenous farmers. Additionally, Ilobezi will purchase sunflower seed from smallholders, while providing support in the form of improved seed and extension services. Offering farmers an alternative crop such as sunflower, which is less prone to drought, will allow farmers to diversify, making them more resilient to climate change while improving incomes.
AgDevCo, in partnership with The MasterCard Foundation, today announced a US$15.4 million initiative to boost the incomes of smallholder farmers in seven African countries (Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia)