Our programmes

Farm Africa worked with micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) to provide the support they needed to evolve into profitable, growing agribusinesses. From a ketchup manufacturer to a green bean exporter, the project worked with a huge diversity of businesses engaged across the horticultural value chain.

Project activities catered to the specific needs of each business including bespoke management, financial and technical training, stakeholder mapping and facilitating mutually beneficial contracts between farmers, buyers, suppliers and traders.

We prioritised investment needs and critical areas that could spur business growth. We also worked with 15 MSMEs from the Tanzanian horticulture sector following the increasing demand for spices, fruits and vegetables in local and export markets.

With financial support from the Vitol Foundation, Cultivate provided businesses in Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia with tailored business development support and training using scalable online delivery mechanisms. Drawing on Farm Africa’s experience of analysing value chains and supporting first-mile agribusinesses, Cultivate worked with start-up and early-stage businesses with a $20,000 – $1million turnover.

Based in Kenya, Cultivate aimed to increase demand and facilitate the supply of business development services to rural small and growing agribusinesses (SGBs) across eastern Africa. We helped businesses develop and implement effective business strategies, boost their productivity and production, meet commodity standards and improve marketing operations and market access.

Through Cultivate’s online business skills training sessions and technical advisory support, SGBs identified risks and opportunities, conducted market and opportunities analysis, fostered business resilience and improved their pricing, costing and profitability for sustainable growth.

In many regions in Ethiopia, soil degradation and damage to natural resources caused by climate change is threatening farmers’ livelihoods and affecting long-term food security.

Farm Africa partnered with Ten Senses Africa, an agricultural company dedicated to organic, fair trade and ethical business practices, to support smallholders living in Kwale, Kilifi and Lamu counties in coastal Kenya to establish or develop profitable cashew and sesame businesses.

Against the odds, farmers living along the borders of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Virunga National Park are producing some of the world’s finest Arabica coffee. Amid outbursts of conflict, this extraordinary landscape produces raw coffee beans with spectacular potential, while the National Park provides a vital refuge for endangered animals including the mountain gorilla.

This project helped western Uganda upgrade its coffee value chain with a focus on delivering increased volumes of sustainably produced, quality Arabica coffee to premium export markets and including smallholder farmers in the value chain.

Farm Africa worked with the Ugandan coffee processor and exporter, UGACOF, to reduce losses during production, harvest and post-harvest handling; expand marketing opportunities for smallholder farmers and help them diversify into higher value export markets.

The project helped farmers deliver a consistent supply of quality coffee cherries to UGACOF who marketed the produce to European Union, and African, Caribbean and Pacific roasters.

Working with 17,000 farmers and selling 44% of all exported Uganda chillies in 2017, Northeast Chilli Producers Association (NECPA) is a key player in the chilli industry. Farm Africa helped NECPA adopt a more market-orientated business model, which opened up new export opportunities to chilli farmers. This involved helping chilli growers gain access to quality seeds and equipment, increase their yields and meet international buyers’ quality standards.

Market demand for sorghum is rising but smallholder farmers lack the yields, equipment and systems to tap into demand. Farm Africa supported smallholder farmers to adopt new techniques that boost yields, build resilience to extreme weather and protect the environment.

Together, Farm Africa and UN Women worked to close the gender gap in the sunflower sector. UN Women teamed up with local government to ensure Agricultural Marketing Cooperatives (AMCOs) in Tanzania’s Ikungi district increased their female membership. In particular, Farm Africa helped female members in three of the AMCOs to boost their productivity and meet the growing demand for sunflower oil.

Many women are currently excluded from participating in and benefitting from the sector, being held back by poor production practices, and lack of access to markets and cooperatives.

The four-year Kenya Market-led Aquaculture Programme (KMAP), which was implemented by Farm Africa alongside a consortium of five supporting partners, worked directly with farmers, aquaculture inputs suppliers and traders to improve production, strengthen market systems and the policy environment. The project focused on strengthening fish farmers’ links to high-quality, affordable input suppliers and improving fish farmers’ market orientation and profitability.

We provided technical and business training to 1,114 medium and large-scale fish farmers, hatcheries and fish feed producers in West and Central Kenya. Fish farmers formed farmer groups for consistent production and supply of fish to the market to help the industry thrive. We also supported private sector participation in creating an enabling policy environment for aquaculture development.

The project contributed to the removal of the 5% fisheries levy on imported feeds. We successfully lobbied for the enactment of a bill that introduced an aquaculture inputs (feeds and fingerlings) cost sharing system between fish farmers and the county government of Kakamega to boost aquaculture production in the county.

This project worked with 50 nut farmers in Kwale, Kilifi and Taita Taveta in coastal Kenya to use recycled farm waste to boost harvests.

Farmers were trained on how to use a heat process to recycle waste products from macadamia nuts, coconut shells and cashew nuts into biochar, a charcoal-like material that promotes environmental conservation and enhances agricultural productivity.

The initiative reduced carbon dioxide emissions while fostering job creation, increasing incomes and improving the livelihoods of farmers.

Farm Africa worked with pastoralist women living in South Omo and Karamoja in Ethiopia and Uganda, supporting them to set up sustainable, small-scale goat-rearing enterprises to help them generate an income and provide their families with a more nutritious diet.

We established Women’s Livestock Groups, through which we provided training in goat rearing and fodder and rangeland management.

We improved women’s access to livestock by setting up a revolving goat scheme, which required each woman who received two goats from Farm Africa to give two does (female goats) to another vulnerable woman once her herd had grown, creating a cycle of improved prosperity.

In Uganda’s Karamoja region, Farm Africa is partnering with CARE International and local organisations to enhance climate resilience, food security and incomes of pastoralist communities, with a particular focus on women and young people. The project is transforming valley dam landscapes into sustainable, productive farmland for pastoralists, addressing the region’s critical water retention and agricultural needs amidst rising climate extremes.

The project supports groups of farmers, each guided by a trained Village Based-Advisor (VBA), in climate-smart agriculture, vegetable production and post-harvest handling of their crops. Demonstration gardens are established to grow high-value vegetables and leafy greens and show irrigation innovations that maximise water retention and access to water. Farmers also receive solar-powered irrigation kits, treadle pumps and seeds. As a result, farmers are now growing and eating a diverse range of crops year-round, improving their food security, incomes and nutrition.

As part of the project, farmers are linked to agro-input providers who supply high-quality seeds and agrochemicals, and are connected to buyers for their produce. This enables them to sell vegetables to neighbouring and local markets, restaurants and hotels. With more income, farmers can now buy more healthy food to add to their families’ diets.

Farm Africa implemented Forests for Sustainable Development, a four-year programme in the Oromia Regional State of  Ethiopia to build on the success of previous programmes in reducing deforestation, cutting carbon emissions, increasing the incomes of forest-dependent communities and addressing sustainability limitations.

The project worked to benefit both people and planet by developing sustainable livelihoods and reducing biodiversity loss, while also improving the resilience of the local community and improving governance for integrated landscape management.