Farm Africa chief executive addresses International Parliamentary Conference on Economic Growth for Development

19 November 2014

Farm Africa’s Chief Executive, Nigel Harris, addressed an audience of 80 international parliamentarians at the International Parliamentary Conference on Economic Growth for Development in Westminster.

The event was held in collaboration with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association UK, the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme.

Nigel was invited to speak to about Farm Africa’s experience of boosting smallholders’ productivity, helping them to increase their economic and environmental resilience and gain access to markets. Many of the conference guests were from countries with high levels of subsistence farming.

Nigel reflected on Farm Africa’s work with the multinational company Diageo and the Government of Ethiopia. The pilot project successfully sourced barely for brewing from over 700 smallholder farmers. Through training and capacity building, Farm Africa helped to successfully link the company to local farmers. The learning from this project is now being used extensively by Diageo.

Nigel also cited the work of Sidai Africa Ltd, Farm Africa’s social enterprise, which is committed to linking farmers to markets. Sidai also helps livestock keepers in often remote rural areas to get better access to quality inputs and services that would otherwise be hard to access. The business is helping to stimulate a market in supplying high-quality inputs to livestock keepers through a network of nearly 100 franchise businesses across Kenya.

And Nigel was also keen to highlight the charity’s Maendeleo Agriculture Enterprise Fund (MAEF). The fund helps smallholders to develop innovative and alternative business models, allowing them to access profitable markets by working collectively to bulk and store products.

For example, in Tanzania Farm Africa has worked with 2,000 cashew farmers to improve their practices, helping them to achieve Fair Trade and Organic certification for their produce and significantly increasing its commercial value and profitability. In the first eight months of 2014 alone, the cashew farmers more than doubled their turnover from that in 2013.

There are hugely positive impacts to linking smallholder farmers into supply chains, including: improving post-harvest technology; mainstreaming ‘climate-smart’ techniques; investment in new seed varieties; stimulating crop rotation with other equally marketable legumes; and reaching out more effectively to women farmers and young people and improving infrastructure.

Guests came away from the conference with a clearer sense of how NGOs like Farm Africa can work with smallholders to help them grow their ability to deliver high-quality and quantity produce. And also how to better interact with markets, meet demand, as well as feeding people now and in the future.