AgDevCo

AgDevCo’s Smallholder Development Unit (SDU) has been convening periodic virtual knowledge sharing sessions for its partner businesses, as we all work to understand the implications of the Covid-19 pandemic for African agribusiness and their smallholder producers and customers. 

AgDevCo’s investments don’t just generate direct impact, they can also transform markets. 

Our partners share how their smallholder farmer schemes have presented significant commercial opportunities.

This report summarises the findings from a qualitative impact assessment carried out with smallholder farmers to investigate the impact of GADC/SDU's VSLA programme. 

Pilots are a powerful way to design new solutions by testing hypotheses and validating what is actually working. But the true art of pilots is knowing when it's time to scale or bring home a controlled and productive failure.

There is one factor above all that rules when it comes to relevant technologies: Return on Investment (ROI). Tech should either make you money, or save you money--it's that simple!

Specific challenges will always vary across businesses, but what does not vary is this: you don’t need tech that is cool and you don’t need buzzwords. You need a solution that works.

Agribusinesses are increasingly exploring how digital communication can help build relationships with smallholder farmers. 

Increasing rates of phone ownership in Africa means that phone-based services can be a good option for reaching smallholder farmers, even in rural areas.

Radio offers significant opportunities to agribusinesses and other organisations to communicate with smallholder farmers. 

The third part of AgDevCo's guidelines discusses how to use pilot testing and iteration to reduce risk and uncertainty in digital technology projects.

The second part of AgDevCo's guidelines for agribusinesses on digital technology projects focuses on working with technology providers.