Smallholder Farmers

Despite producing most of the world’s food, smallholder farmers tend to be food insecure themselves: globally, they form the majority of people living in poverty. Helping raise their incomes and improve their livelihoods holds the key to building sustainable food systems, advancing food security and achieving Zero Hunger.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) supports smallholder farmers in overcoming systemic challenges and becoming competitive actors in global food systems. As part of these efforts, the WFP Innovation Accelerator works with ten innovations that are helping solve major problems facing smallholder farmers.

Smallholder farmers benefited from our agricultural market development work, which improved the food security for more than
2,292,000 people

Innovations

© WFP/FtMA

Farm to Market Alliance (FtMA)

As the Accelerator continues to utilize innovation to disrupt hunger, the team recognizes more effort must be made to deliver innovative solutions that work towards several SDG goals to build a more resilient and effective ecosystem. The SDG Acceleration team is dedicated to discovering innovations that cover numerous SDGs in diverse contexts.

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WFP/Alex Lozan

Post-Harvest Loss Reduction

WFP’s Post-Harvest Loss (PHL) Venture is a venture between WFP’s Programme Unit and the WFP Innovation Accelerator that supports WFP country offices to develop and scale PHL sustainable business models. This allows smallholder farmers to access PHL technologies, with the aim of improving household food security and income while enhancing income opportunities for other value chain actors. Participating farmers were able to significantly reduce their post-harvest losses, leading to a threefold increase in their income.

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© Dreamcatcher Productions

Apeel Sciences

Apeel Sciences aims to increase Kenyan smallholder incomes by opening up new export market opportunities for avocados with Apeel shelf-life extension technology.

Learn more about Apeel Sciences’ work in 2021

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© Arable/ Pedro Chilambe

Arable

Arable aims to increase smallholder farmer resilience through agronomic advising and microinsurance informed by hyperlocal data. Arable builds compact, low-cost crop and climate monitoring systems that provide real-time information about the weather and plant productivity. The project achieved key milestones to impact the lives of smallholder farmers in Mozambique.

Learn more about Arable’s work in 2021

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© WFP/Mohammad Batah

Decapolis

Decapolis is an innovative blockchain-based food safety and quality traceability platform. It allows smallholder farmers to validate their products’ compliance with quality control standards, empowering them to access export markets and generate better income.

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© Imara Tech/Ikram Poppe

Imara Tech: Scaling Mechanization

Imara Tech manufactures agricultural equipment for smallholder farmers in Tanzania. The company pitched products to 220 farmer groups and 4000 farmers that were being supported by WFP Tanzania and concluded the Sprint with having sold 117 threshers and learned valuable lessons about scaling. Products sold by Imara Tech during the sprint program helped create 63 new agribusinesses and enabled 1400 farms to access mechanization.

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© Aflasight

Kumwe/AflaSight

AflaSight combines cutting-edge machine technology with strategic market operations to provide large-scale cleaning of maize in aflatoxin hot-beds.

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© KuzaOne

Kuza One

Kuza One is a digital platform that provides training and collaboration opportunities to smallholder farmers and agripreneurs (i.e. rural youth, women, and small business owners) in Kenya, helping them grow their businesses and earn viable incomes. Each Agripreneur offers bundled services to a cohort of 200 smallholder farmers from within their local communities. As members of OneNetwork, Agripreneurs earn commissions from selling high-quality products and services from curated service providers.

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© Meridia/Dora Konadu Opoku

Meridia

Aiming to document the land tenure for Ghana’s farmers affordably at scale, Meridia is the local business partner and one-stop-shop for the entire process of land tenure. Meridia developed proprietary technology for high speed delivery and greater cost-effectiveness.

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© Producers Direct/ Eunice Prudencio

Producers Direct

Producers Direct is an innovative digital farmers’ cooperative model that fosters the inclusion of women smallholders and youth in food value chains in Peru. By providing them with training and pioneering digital solutions, it unlocks the farmers’ potential, access to markets, and incomes.

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© WFP/Bak Ngor

Rainmaker

Rainmaker is a South Sudan company that is developing solar-powered water pumps and services for food secure, stable and self-sufficient communities.

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© WFP/Abeshigie Zalla

Saving Grains

Saving Grains aims to create a mass market for hermetic bags in Ethiopia to turn food losses into incomes for smallholders. Saving Grains identified the obstacles towards adoption of hermetic storage and how to build a mass market to help farmers improve food security or incomes.

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© Takachar

Takachar

Takachar turns farrmers’ crop residues into higher-value bioproducts at the farm gate, increasing their income by up to 40 percent and reducing the harmful air pollution from waste burning.

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© Thrive Agric

Thrive Agric

Thrive Agric provides micro-loans to farmers and access to buyers. The farmers receive these loans as inputs (e.g. seeds fertilisers and insurance). Thrive Agric sprint successfully procured over 6,400 metric tons of high quality grains from 11,250 smallholder farmers – about 30 percent more than the set target, and increasing incomes of farmers by 25 percent.

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© Zambia Food Dryers

Zambia Food Dryers

The project aims to provide Solar Dryers for safe and nutritious food all year round. The Zambia country office, in collaboration with the Government of Zambia and the private sector, introduced and promoted access to Solar Food Dryers, enabling people to safely dry nutritious foods for both household consumption and sale to local markets.

Learn more about Zambia Food Dryers’ work in 2021

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