image: Farmers in Uganda tend to their crops view more
Credit: CABI
A new five-year £30 million UK Department for International Development (DFID) funded programme is aiming to improve the livelihoods of 565,000 smallholder farmers and their families in Uganda, Malawi and Nepal by stimulating investment in emerging agri-markets.
The Commercial Agriculture for Smallholders and Agribusiness (CASA) programme, a key part of which is led by NIRAS in partnership with CABI and Swisscontact, will see at least £4 million of additional investment mobilised into six agricultural market systems and the growth of SME agribusinesses resulting in at least 3,000 jobs in the three countries - Uganda, Malawi and Nepal.
At least half of those to benefit from the programme will be women farmers and at least 30 percent of whom are living on under $2 a day. It is expected that those participating will see their incomes increased by up to £80 a year as well as positive changes in nutrition, climate resilience, with women being empowered at business, and household level.
CASA will focus on supporting sesame and beans in Uganda, poultry and aquaculture in Malawi and dairy and vegetables in Nepal.
Ultimately, CASA aims to improve the livelihoods of farmers by facilitating their equitable engagement in expanding commercial markets while enhancing the sustainability and climate resilience of farming systems and supporting the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystems.
NIRAS will assume the overall responsibility for programme management of the programme's work in these three countries and also its global learning and influencing activities. The consortium will draw upon extensive experience in gender mainstreaming. For example, NIRAS have implemented multiple 'gender help desks' as part of a previous collaboration with the EU, EBRD and SIDA.
Kristina Mastroianni, NIRAS' Technical Director for Agriculture and also CASA's Programme Director, said, "The programme is a unique opportunity to achieve real systemic change through researching concrete practices of value chain development and showing investors what a great business case smallholder farming systems can be."
CABI's expertise in communications and engagement activities will also help place knowledge into the hands of investors in agribusiness by reaching at least 1,000 government, donor or business stakeholders face-to-face through three Smallholder Investor Summit events in East and Southern Africa and Nepal.
Dr Dennis Rangi, CABI's Director General - Development, said, "By working together to foster the importance of agriculture as a business, we can make a difference in empowering smallholder farmers, both male and female, to increase their yields and improve their livelihoods and ultimately strengthen local, national and global food chains and food security for all."
Swisscontact will draw on years of global inclusive markets systems experience, including women's economic empowerment and through their active engagement in the regions will ensure a cost effective and fast approach to building the design and implementation capacity as well as confidence of the country teams.
Ailsa Buckley, Swisscontact's Senior IM mentor for Central, East and Southern Africa believes, "CASA is the perfect opportunity for us to partner with system actors to demonstrate sustainable and scale-able business models that promote smallholder aggregation and agri-investment."
In addition, some of the innovations and achievements of the programme will be covered by SciDev.Net - the world's leading source of reliable and authoritative news, views and analysis about science and technology for global development.
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Additional information
NIRAS
NIRAS' history is rooted in the agriculture sector for 45 years, originally owned by the Swedish and Danish farmers' association. NIRAS has successfully delivered over £300 million worth of TA to climate smart, gender mainstreamed and nutrition sensitive agriculture and agribusiness programmes in more than 180 countries.
CABI
CABI leads the delivery of research and communications drawing on their status as a world leader in agriculture with a strong scientific reputation and vast track record. It is also the parent organization of SciDev.Net, an independent news network focusing on science in the global South.
Swisscontact
Swisscontact's Inclusive Markets approach ensures efficient, effective and trust-based engagement with female and male smallholder farmers and their organisations, SMEs, advocacy and regulatory partners in each market system.
About NIRAS
Owned by a foundation and a percentage of its employees, NIRAS is an international multi-disciplinary consultancy firm with Nordic roots and values creating sustainable development solutions for a better, more equal, and stable world. We work across a broad spectrum of areas including construction, energy, water, environment, and infrastructure to rural development, the process industry, economic development, geodata, as well as urban planning. Our mission is to deliver tailored, innovative, value-creating, and results-driven solutions to enable our clients and partners, achieve their goals. We achieve this by providing transformative support for positive change, addressing root causes, and magnifying impact through flexibility in implementation, capturing SDG-linked results, and celebrating successes.
We collaborate with international development organisations, donors, governments, institutional investors, and the private sector to design, manage, and evaluate projects and services that create opportunities for people to improve their lives and live in safe, equal, well-governed, and climate-resilient societies. We do this in partnership with our country offices and our extensive network of experts to ensure a comprehensive, results-driven approach that is both contextually sensitive and produces innovative outcomes for maximum value. NIRAS applies the highest ethical standards wherever we operate, be it in fragile, post-conflict, least developed, emerging, or middle-income economies.
About CABI
CABI is an international not-for-profit organization that improves people's lives by providing information and applying scientific expertise to solve problems in agriculture and the environment.
Through knowledge sharing and science, CABI helps address issues of global concern such as improving global food security and safeguarding the environment. We do this by helping farmers grow more and lose less of what they produce, combating threats to agriculture and the environment from pests and diseases, protecting biodiversity from invasive species, and improving access to agricultural and environmental scientific knowledge. Our 49 member countries guide and influence our core areas of work, which include development and research projects, scientific publishing and microbial services.
We gratefully acknowledge the core financial support from our member countries (and lead agencies) including the United Kingdom (Department for International Development), China (Chinese Ministry of Agriculture), Australia (Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research), Canada (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada), Netherlands (Directorate-General for International Cooperation, and Switzerland (Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation). Other sources of funding include the fees paid by our member countries and profits from our publishing activities which enable CABI to support rural development and scientific research around the world.
About Swisscontact
Swisscontact promotes economic, social and ecological development by giving people the opportunity to improve their living conditions on their own. In its project work, Swisscontact facilitates access to vocational training, promotes local entrepreneurship, creates access to local financial services and supports the efficient use of resources with the aim of effectively promoting income and employment.
Swisscontact was founded in 1959 as an independent foundation of personalities from the Swiss economy and science. It is exclusively active in international cooperation and has been carrying out its own and mandated projects since 1961. Since its foundation, Swisscontact has been close to the private sector. In 2018, Swisscontact was active in 36 countries with around 1,200 employees. The Foundation's registered office is in Zurich.
About SciDev.Net
SciDev.Net is the world's leading source of reliable and authoritative news, views and analysis about science and technology for global development.
Our Mission is to use independent journalism to help individuals and organisations apply science to decision-making in order to drive equitable, sustainable development and poverty reduction. SciDev.Net is part of CAB International (CABI) - a not-for-profit organisation that improves people's lives worldwide by providing information and applying scientific expertise to solve problems in agriculture and the environment.
SciDev.Net operates editorially independently from CABI with its content overseen by an independent Editorial Advisory Committee whose role is to ensure our editorial independence protocol is adhered to. The protocol is available on request.
Media enquiries
Wayne Coles, Communications Manager, CABI, email: w.coles@cabi.org Tel: +44 (0)1491 829395