Resources
Explore our resources of valuable insights, tools, and materials to enhance your knowledge and skills.
Smallholder
Read how AgDevCo's SDU showcases best practices to promote women’s economic empowerment in outgrower schemes.
Despite contributing substantially to agricultural production, female farmers in sub-Saharan Africa face numerous constraints that limit their productivity and their inclusion in smallholder schemes.
In this interview, Sandi Roberts explains how helping agribusinesses in Africa can help smallholder farmers produce more and increase their incomes.
AgDevCo, in collaboration with The MasterCard Foundation and UKAID, launched the Smallholder Development Unit (SDU) to work with rural agricultural enterprises to develop equitable outgrower schemes that will boost productivity and incomes for half a million smallholder farmers.
The schemes featured represent a cross-section of value chains, from high-value horticulture (bananas) to commodity crops (maize and sugarcane), small livestock (broilers), and seed (flowers). Understanding the lessons of these schemes and why they have been successful will help to inform the design of new outgrower schemes, minimise mistakes, and ensure both companies and growers reap the benefits.