Photo above: Bangladesh, © Aidan Dockery / Solidaridad
Building on a purposeful collaboration to drive sustainable food systems
In this new phase, we will explore collaboration opportunities across a wide geographical scope, including in Asia (India and Bangladesh) and in Africa (Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda and Tanzania), on several key topics. These include:
- Training farmers in business skills and climate-smart agricultural practices;
- Supporting crop diversification and access to local/regional markets;
- Improving food safety, nutrition security, and access to finance;
- Fostering local innovation, such as rural input and service centres.
Through this collaboration, we will build on an existing track record of joint projects in which we have worked together with farmers and farming communities to foster food security, nutrition and high-quality agricultural services, such as in India, Bangladesh and Nigeria.
These projects are an example of Solidaridad’s strategy of driving forward sustainable and inclusive food systems through our input and service delivery approaches. As a part of this approach, we broker partnerships with European market actors to increase access to high-quality, affordable inputs and services for small-scale farmers and processors in producing countries, where local alternatives may currently be insufficient.
This includes inputs such as climate-resilient seed varieties, crop protection and nutrition; finance and insurance products including blended finance options and loans; in-person, field-based farmer training; and technology solutions such as digital advisory services and tools providing information on market prices, soil health and weather. Having access to the right inputs and services at a fair price can contribute to farmers’ resilience, raise incomes, and support inclusive and sustainable supply chains.
Smart Farming, Healthy Food in Bangladesh
A good example of this work is the Smart Farming, Healthy Food programme, a public-private partnership (2020-2025) supported by the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) and implemented by Solidaridad, East-West Seed Knowledge Transfer Foundation, and the Bangladesh Department of Agricultural Extension. The partnership was aimed at developing sustainable and climate-resilient smallholder vegetable production and supply systems in the Barisal and Chittagong Divisions.
Some key results included:
- 15,453 ha under climate-resilient practices;
- 38,634 farmers directly reached;
- 35,543 farmers adopted sustainable practices;
- 40 youth-led collection centres established;
- 16,999 farmers with improved market access;
- 647 farmers accessed significant amounts in loans.
Success factors in this partnership included the participation of women in entrepreneurship, which was effective through homestead gardening and semi-commercial farming. At the same time, a key learning was that structural barriers for women are a big challenge to overcome. Women participated strongly, but mobility constraints, workload, asset ownership and access to finance continued to limit their participation in market-facing roles. Furthermore, local extension services proved cost-effective via local channels and market actors, while youth-led collection centres provided fair prices and space for post-harvest processing and transport.
In our future programming, we strive to address this by promoting women and youth as entrepreneurs, service providers, input retailers, nursery operators, collection centre managers and market actors, while addressing mobility, finance and asset-ownership constraints.
Working with women farmers and entrepreneurs in India
Working with women farmers and entrepreneurs was an important aspect also of our project Sustainable Food and Nutrition Security and Transforming Smallholders’ Livelihood in Madhya Pradesh, India (known as the Good Farming, Good Food programme). This programme was implemented in collaboration with East-West Seed, East-West Seed Knowledge Transfer Foundation, Vippy Industries Ltd., Samarth Kisan Producer Company, and a number of governmental institutions in India.
This programme was aimed at improving the availability and affordability of soy and vegetables at farm and household level; enhancing access to nutritious soy products; and raising awareness and stimulating demand for nutritious foods.
Some key results included:
- Widespread adoption of climate-resilient agricultural practices; with 87% of the vegetable farmers (of the total 45,195 trained farmers) reporting the adoption of Good Agricultural Practices (GAP);
- Substantial improvements in crop productivity and farm profitability; in particular, crop diversification into vegetables;
- Improved farmers’ access to markets through stronger linkages with Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) and private sector partners;
- Measurable improvements in dietary diversity, which was a major focus of the project;
- Significant gains in women’s participation and empowerment.
Women played central roles in kitchen gardening initiatives, nutrition awareness campaigns and rural enterprises. Many women became nutrition champions (or ‘Nutri Sakhis’), supporting community education and promoting improved dietary practices. Moreover, women-led enterprises also emerged as an important livelihood outcome, including increased monthly incomes.
Transforming the Fruit and Vegetable Market in Nigeria
This project, implemented in 2019-2024, aimed to increase productivity in the vegetable sector in Nigeria by delivering training and introducing new fruit and vegetable seed varieties. It demonstrated and disseminated sustainable and profitable farming practices for vegetable farmers, in close cooperation with the local Ministry of Agriculture, Solidaridad and East-West Seed Knowledge Transfer Foundation (EWS-KT).
The project worked directly with farmers in Kaduna and Kano States of Nigeria. EWS-KT reached 69,791 farmers through the Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) training, and Solidaridad reached 35,000 farmers, including 18,281 women and youth. Solidaridad worked with them on community mobilization, enhancing women’s and youth participation, developing social capital, and promoting the benefits of vegetables as a business opportunity and for improved nutrition.
Some key results included:
- 625 Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs) established. These VSLAs have been instrumental in improving the financial inclusion of women participants;
- 60 Farmer Field and Business School (FFBS) clusters established, enabling 330 individuals (including 110 females) to benefit from expert advisory services on integrated soil management, climate-smart agriculture, commodity off-taker linkages and market information;
- 423 vegetable gardens established by women to support household nutrition and income;
- 12 million listeners reached and sensitized on climate-smart agriculture via radio;
- 66 smallholder youth and women farmers trained as community facilitators on climate-smart agriculture, VSLA and nutrition-sensitive agriculture. They, in turn, trained 18,281 women, youth, migrants and elderly farmers, using indigenous languages to enhance their understanding and adoption of improved practices.
Public-private collaboration is critical for scale
Programmes like these have been key in demonstrating that government, private sector, financial institutions, civil society organizations, NGOs and farmer networks each play a different but necessary role in a partnership. Collaboration on various aspects of a multi-stakeholder partnership is essential to achieving the desired outcomes and making a significant impact, as well as being able to scale the project further.
These projects were part of the Sustainable Development Goals Partnership (SDGP) facility, an initiative of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO). Check out also their publication “Cultivating partnerships, harvesting results” which reflects on the impacts and lessons learnt from the SDGP facility, including the projects described above.
Partner with us to foster food security and sustainability
Interested in working together to drive this progress further? Please reach out to us; we’ll be happy to discuss the opportunities for collaboration.
Fiker Tsehaye
Corporate Partnerships Manager, Solidaridad Europe
fiker.tsehaye@solidaridadnetwork.org
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