Feed the Future Ethiopia Farm Service Center Project

Overview:

The two-year, $2.9 million Feed the Future Ethiopia Farm Service Center Project (2015-2017), funded by USAID, provided technical support to the Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) in establishing 19 Farm Service Centers (FSCs) throughout the Amhara, Oromia, SNNPR and Tigray regions of Ethiopia. This was a follow-on project to the successful USAID Commercial Farm Service Program, which piloted CNFA’s Farm Service Center solution in Ethiopia

Approach:

1. Increased Income and Access to Finance: In Ethiopia, CNFA’s FSCs, a market-based private sector solution, applied a matching grant and training methodology to establish small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that deliver farm supplies and services. Located in townships, the FSCs served as rural development centers that met the needs of private farmers in their communities. These centers improved access to finance and increased sustainable income by providing a range of agricultural inputs, machinery services, veterinary services and products, marketing assistance for agricultural outputs, training and information and access to credit.
2. Improved Food Security: The growing network of Farm Service Center retailers positively impacted thousands of smallholder farmers across Ethiopia and increased the viability and food security of the entire region. Additionally, ATA’s monitoring and evaluation information systems ensured that the full impact of this transformation was captured and leveraged to continually integrate lessons learned.
3. Promoted Gender Equality: The project ensured that gender integration and environmental mitigation measures were fully incorporated in the roll-out of all new Farm Service Centers.

Overview:

The Rural Economic Development Program (RED) (2012-2016) for the Southern Regions of Georgia was a joint Danish-Swiss program that aimed to contribute to the economic growth of the agriculture sector and reduce poverty in the Samtskhe-Javakheti and Kvemo Kartli regions. The four-year, $11.5 million Rural Economic Development Program focused on three main initiatives: increased productivity and profitability of seed and ware potato producers; increased productivity and profitability of commercial dairies, milk and beef producers; and private investment in potato, dairy and livestock value chains.

Approach:

1. Improved Productivity and Marketing: The program advised and provided guidance on production and marketing of seed and ware potatoes, raw milk and other dairy products.
2. Boosted Investment in Key Value Chains: RED stimulated direct private investment in program-targeted activities using two financing mechanisms: a secured lending facility and a co-investment fund.

The impact of RED on smallholder farmers and agricultural enterprises involved in the target regions was substantial. With the tailor-made technical assistance and increased private investment in the potato, dairy and livestock value chains, targeted value chain actors – including farmers – reached higher productivity and improved incomes, in turn, leading to economic growth of the region.

Overview:

In Liberia, CNFA implemented the $19.3 million Feed the Future Liberia Agribusiness Development Activity (LADA) (2015-2020), funded by USAID. LADA aimed to increase incomes of smallholder farmers and entrepreneurs throughout Liberia to expand access to and use of agricultural inputs, improve post-harvest handling activities and streamline high-potential agricultural value chains.

Program Approach:

1. Linking Markets Through Private Sector Engagement: LADA used a results-driven and sustainability approach to increase private sector investment in agricultural input systems, post-harvest handling, transport and processing activities and to strengthen the market environment with information, advocacy and support.
2. Training and Capacity Building: LADA established 24 different aggregation clusters across the country to select appropriate agribusinesses, sustainable and transparent cooperatives and established agrodealers to provide specialized trainings and certifications.
3. Financial Management: LADA managed a credit guarantee facility to catalyze the extension of credit to agrodealers by supply companies and financial institutions to mitigate the high risk associated with agricultural lending. Another financial tool, the Agribusiness Investment Network (AIN), was established and is housed with LADA’s local sub-implementer, Business Start-Up Center (BSC) Monrovia in order to provide a platform through which agricultural and agribusiness agents, NGOs and financial institutions can interact.
4. Increasing Access to Market Information and Digital Financial Services: Enclude, a CNFA partner, explored the development of a digital financial services product portfolio, delivery channels and risk management mechanisms for LADA. This technology allows smallholders to make better-informed decisions for production, processing and marketing processes through value chain gap analyses.
5. Youth, Gender and Social Capital: LADA targeted youth in the project’s agrodealer development interventions and linked smallholder farming youth groups to aggregators and buyers. CNFA also employed a full-time Gender Specialist who mapped gender roles and decision-making power within the targeted value chains, ascertained gender roles and examined issues related to women’s time, workloads, access to information and control over resources.

Partners:

1. Enclude
2. Business Start-Up Center Monrovia’s network
3. The Global Cold Chain Alliance

Overview:

The Georgia Hazelnut Improvement Project (G-HIP) was a $7.3 million project (2015-2023) funded and implemented by a Global Development Alliance (GDA) between USAID, Ferrero and CNFA to increase the sustainable capacity and private sector development of the hazelnut industry in Georgia.

Hazelnuts represent Georgia’s second largest agricultural export by value and support the livelihoods of more than 50,000 growers and processors, but due to inconsistent quality and lack of market distinction, Georgian hazelnuts often sell at lower prices. G-HIP worked to transform and streamline the hazelnut value chain to improve the quality of Georgian hazelnuts.

Program Approach:

1. Capacity Building and Association Development: G-HIP provided training to beneficiaries such as the Georgian Hazelnut Growers Association (GHGA) and the Hazelnut Exporters and Processors Association (HEPA) to strengthen the capacity of the country’s existing drying and storage infrastructure and maximize impact in the sector.
2. Increased Productivity and Competitiveness: G-HIP implemented activities to mitigate inefficient value chain dynamics, including the introduction of a post-harvest quality incentive system, technology upgrades to post-harvest infrastructure and improved access to finance for value chain stakeholders.
3. Infrastructure Development and Marketing: To expand export marketing opportunities for Georgian hazelnuts, GHGA initiated efforts to improve traceability and widen the use of soil testing to enhance hazelnut quality along the value chain.

The Georgian horticulture sector has significant untapped potential for growth that has been validated by a rapidly increasing export rate in the last few years. Official statistics for stone fruit exports in 2014 show an increase of 108% ($3MM) compared to 2013. Georgia has made increasing agricultural exports a strategic priority and identified the overall availability of effective postharvest activities as a key indicator of success. Given this reality, USAID’s REAP program awarded matching grants to 13 emerging agribusinesses to install modern refrigerated cold storage systems for fruits and vegetables.

Established in 2012, Georgian Fruit Company’s (GFC) initial business activities involved renting warehouses in different regions of Georgia to consolidate produce from local farmers for export. Utilizing a REAP grant and favorable loan terms from the Agricultural Projects Management Agency (APMA), GFC installed a new 400 m³ refrigerated cold storage unit with modern packing and boxing mechanisms in the Gurjaani district of eastern Georgia.

Additionally, a new calibration machine that sorts fruits by color and size provided further incentive for local farmers to work with GFC and the company’s modern agricultural technologies to increase their productivity and sales.

In the first half of 2015, tangerine, apple, and cucumber exports to Ukraine and Russia have increased by 50%, totaling 280 tons. Currently, GFC is working with more than 100 peach and nectarine farmers in Kakheti to meet an export demand of more than 1,500 tons from their various international partners.

The USAID-supported Agricultural Growth Program – Livestock Market Development (AGP-LMD) kicked off a series of events known as “School Milk Days” aimed to increase the awareness and knowledge of school age children, parents and teachers about milk in Ethiopia. The project organized these events as part of a campaign to stress the nutrition and benefits of milk to normal growth and development.

Watch this short video to learn more about this activity.

Overview:

Launched in 2007, the Tanzania Agro-dealer Strengthening Program (TASP), funded by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, has been successful in building and supporting a vibrant agro-dealer network capable of serving smallholder farmer demands for improved inputs, services, and marketing. Like CNFA’s other agro-dealer development programs, TASP focused on business and technical training as well as capacity building. Programming also focused on facilitating access to financial services, output marketing, processing, value adding services, and policy advocacy through association development.

TASP also designed and supported the Tanzanian government’s targeted subsidy program to link agro-dealers to the local seed industry and has been scaled up to foster the development of a nationwide rural market network. In 2010, TASP expanded into new districts, allowing CNFA to improve productivity and incomes for additional farm households in remote and underserved areas. Since 2007, TASP has certified over 2,600 agro-dealers, who are providing products and services to over 1.5 million smallholder farmers and improving the lives of nearly 8 million people.

Program Approach:

• Built agro-dealer capacity to better serve farmers through a proven six-part technical training covering: managing working capital, managing stocks, selling and marketing, basic record keeping, costing and pricing, and managing business relationships;
• Facilitated demand creation by establishing demonstration plots and farmer field days showcasing new agricultural inputs;
• Promoted improved linkage to financial services for agro-dealers through forums and clinics focusing on licensing, completion of a business plan, and access to capital.

Seed Industry & Smart Input Subsidy Distribution: At the program’s outset, CNFA focused on the five Southern Highlands districts targeted by the Government of Tanzania (GoT) for its smart, targeted subsidy program (Fast Track Districts) and five districts in the Arusha, Meru, and Kilimanjaro regions in Northern Tanzania. In Year 2, TASP expanded into the seven other districts in Manyara and Morogoro regions. Around Arusha, CNFA integrated agro-dealer development efforts with initiatives to improve Tanzania’s local seed industry, including foundation seed enterprises and local seed companies. Early activities focused on the design of a smart input subsidy program for sustainably implementing government subsidies to targeted communities and on developing the network of agro-dealers necessary to implement this subsidy program.

Association Development: CNFA supported seven district associations that were fully registered and ten that were in nascent stages of development. One of the associations supported by CNFA was the Songea Agro-dealer Association (SADA). SADA offers a powerful example of the benefits that a well-run association can accrue for its members and the influence that can be exerted. For example:

• SADA successfully advocated against the practice of Regional and District officials dictating prices at which inputs could be sold;
• SADA also proposed the “master input subsidy” concept that CNFA later brought to the MAFC, which would be issued by district officials on presentation of numerous input subsidies by the agro-dealer;
• Where individual group members (particularly startup agro-dealers) experienced difficulty in securing input supply credit, SADA managed to successfully negotiate for credit as an association;
• SADA leased an office in Songea Town and hired a coordinator to administer their activities.

Strengthening the Agro-dealer Network: TASP encouraged the establishment of new agro-dealerships in remote, underserved areas through matching grants, a credit guarantee facility, and demand creation activity that gave the farmer an opportunity to physically witness the benefits of improved agronomic practices and inputs. In addition, technical trainings to strengthen agro-dealer capacity, agro-dealer association development, and linking agro-dealers to financial institutions were key parts of the approach.

The Business Management Training (BMT) raised agro-dealers’ business standards of management and acumen, allowing the MAFC to exclusively link the handling of the subsidy inputs to agro-dealers’ successful completion of BMT. CNFA trained an additional 849 agro-dealers in 24 districts beyond the 17 in the original TASP scope to pave the way for the National Agricultural Inputs Voucher Scheme.

Overview:

The Agrodealer Strengthening Program, funded by the government of Sierra Leone through the Global Agricultural Food and Security Program, aimed to promote the transformation of the Sierra Leone’s fragmented and informal input distribution system into a more efficient, commercially-viable input supply infrastructure operated by the private sector. As part of an implementing consortium with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), CNFA developed an agrodealer network to provide a one-stop-shop for smallholder farmers to access improved inputs, services and output marketing. The program was implemented in the District of Bombali, and enhanced agricultural productivity, increased rural incomes and improved household food security.

Program Approach:

• Develop a private network of agrodealers by establishing one-stop-shops;
• Provide business management and technical training to agrodealers;
• Build and strengthen private sector associations that supply agricultural inputs;
• Improve access to finance through a credit guarantee facility and matching grants program;
• Foster a commercialization enabling environment by advocating for agrodealer involvement in national agricultural sector strategies and implementations.

Overview:

Partnering with the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), CNFA implemented the three-year Agro-dealer Strengthening Program for Mali (ASP-M) to increase rural incomes and reduce poverty by transforming Mali’s underdeveloped input distribution practices into a more efficient, commercially viable input supply system. ASP-M strengthened Malian agro-dealers by providing training in business management and productive farming methods and increased farmer access to agro-dealers in remote areas, ultimately raising rural incomes and increasing household productivity. In order to transform Mali’s agro-dealer network sustainably, our team implemented a methodical four-step approach.

Program Approach:

• Built Agro-dealer Capacity to Serve Farmers: ASP-M developed and implemented activities including business management training, training in product knowledge, and safe use of chemicals and fertilizers. The program also increased market demand for improved inputs through demonstration plots, exhibitions, and farmer field days.
• Improved Rural Access to Finance: To complement stronger business and technical expertise of program trainees, CNFA worked to improve agro-dealers’ access to finance, creating guarantee facilities to stimulate access to trade credit and capital, developing agricultural lending training for commercial banks and microfinance institutions, building targeted agricultural lending products, and introducing competitive matching grants to spur private sector investment.
• Connected Farmers to Markets: With better financing in place, the program focused on smallholder farmer access to larger markets for distribution of their products. CNFA worked with agro-dealers to develop and deliver basic output marketing training in order to increase farmer awareness of market opportunities and to help link them to existing market channels.
• Advanced Agricultural Policy Advocacy: The last component of ASP-M focused on improving channels for a sustainable public-private policy dialogue. CNFA maintained a leadership role in the policy arena, shaping Malian agricultural policy to promote the interests of private sector growth and of the rural smallholder. CNFA also supported the growth of the Agro-dealers National Union in Mali (UNRIA-Mali), which received an endorsement from former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan after he visited the project in August 2010.

To ensure the successful operation of UNRIA, CNFA provided training on organizational management, member services, networking, and advocacy capacity building. This last component of ASP-M ensured that the program would be self-sustaining and bring increased business for agro-dealers and higher incomes for smallholder farmers.