Viewing articles about Food Security
View all articles-
Cultivating Confidence With Potatoes in Central Ethiopia
Transforming communities from the ground up through financial empowerment, agricultural entrepreneurship, and shifting gender norms.
Without fair opportunities, rural women face deepening poverty, limited job prospects, and financial dependence. This inequality hinders community growth. By offering upskilling, financial literacy, and sustainable farming knowledge, we can empower them to achieve self-reliance and long-term resilience.
Read more: Women in Ethiopia are breaking social taboos and embracing entrepreneurship through iDE’s empowering gender training. -
Employee Immersion Experience Brings Deeper Understanding of the Importance of Corporate Partnership
Nine employees from The Toro Company participated in an immersive experience in Zambia for an opportunity to learn and engage with iDE programs in the field.
Corporate partners like The Toro Company play an important role in iDE’s ability to create an impact in its programs around the world. This immersion in Zambia gave nine employees a chance to see first-hand the value of their company’s partnership.
Read more: TTC employees engaged with entrepreneurs, farmers and other Zambian market actors in the field. -
In Rural Kenya, Winfred Builds Better Business from Maize Shelling
For Winfred, entrepreneurial success meant supporting farmers in her rural community.
Agness Ndililwa, a single mother of seven in Zambia, helped support her family by enrolling in a training program with iDE, which helped her develop business skills, connect with agricultural suppliers, and diversify her product range. Through partnerships with iDE and the 'Farm to Market Alliance,' she expanded her business, supported local farmers, and contributed to agricultural resilience in her community.
Read more: Agness Ndililwa, a single mother of seven in Zambia, boosted her business and supported local farmers by enrolling in iDE's training program, connecting her with suppliers, while becoming a Farm Business Advisor (FBA). -
Mother of Seven Becomes Leader and Entrepreneur for Family and Community in Zambia
“My determination and hard work paid off after receiving support from iDE through capacity building as a Farm Business Advisor.”
Agness Ndililwa, a single mother of seven in Zambia, helped support her family by enrolling in a training program with iDE, which helped her develop business skills, connect with agricultural suppliers, and diversify her product range. Through partnerships with iDE and the 'Farm to Market Alliance,' she expanded her business, supported local farmers, and contributed to agricultural resilience in her community.
Read more: Agness Ndililwa, a single mother of seven in Zambia, boosted her business and supported local farmers by enrolling in iDE's training program, connecting her with suppliers, while becoming a Farm Business Advisor (FBA). -
In Nepal, Earthworms Foster Entrepreneurship For Bimala
How organic waste is helping communities thrive in the Himalayas.
Bimala from Chisapani, Nepal, has transformed her family's life through an agricultural vermicomposting project. Now a successful entrepreneur, she supports her family, shares her agricultural knowledge with her community, and advocates for women's financial independence through farming.
Read more: Bimala from Nepal, has transformed her family's life through an agricultural vermicomposting project. Now a successful entrepreneur, she supports her family, shares her agricultural knowledge with her community, and advocates for women's financial independence through farming. -
Growing a Business After Fleeing Conflict in Mozambique
Maiasa built a new life from a barren plot to support her family
After fleeing violence in 2020 and losing her father, 30-year-old Maiasa Nahoda Abdala resettled in Nacala, where she transformed her plot into a thriving source of income through resilient agricultural techniques learned from iDE's PROMARE project.
Read more: Maiasa transformed her plot into a thriving source of income through resilient agricultural techniques -
iDE project spices up earnings for Nepali entrepreneurs
To recover from the COVID shock, iDE clients in the agri-food value chain were supported with business training, loans and labor-saving machinery
With funding provided by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia, targeted 8 million low income people in rural areas across India, Bangladesh and Nepal.
Read more: The project concluded in late 2023, after being extended to support women, returning migrant laborers, and marginalized groups. -
Postharvest technologies provided by women entrepreneurs benefit Kenyan farmers
Switching from manual to mechanized processing saves time and increases profits
The She Feeds Africa project, funded by Zinpro Corporation and the Anderson Foundation, provides women entrepreneurs with access to financing, tools, and training, equipping them to improve postharvest practices and incomes across Kenyan communities
Read more: Switching from manual to mechanized processing saves time and increases profits -
Regenerative Agriculture Helps Nepali Farms Bloom
iDE is powering farmers to protect the environment using natural remedies
By intervening at critical entry points, iDE Nepal is working hard to promote the integration of traditional ecological knowledge with modern agricultural practices among last mile entrepreneurs and smallholder farmers.
Read more: Farmers are trading chemicals for traditional remedies. -
Women economically empowered in three African countries
Women entrepreneurs deliver greater business results
The US$6.4 million ($8.5 million CAD) project, being implemented by iDE and funded by Global Affairs Canada, has been designed to enhance economic empowerment, well-being and inclusive growth by providing support to women involved in agricultural value chains.
Read more: 25,000 women are being targeted across Sub Saharan Africa – in Zambia, Ethiopia and Ghana -
Agricultural value chain bears fruit
How adopting a new crop helped boost incomes and climate resilience of Cambodian farmers
The World Bank says improving the performance of agricultural value chains in emerging countries like Cambodia will be crucial to ending poverty and hunger, boosting shared prosperity, and stewarding the world’s natural resources.
Read more: iDE was instrumental in establishing the value chain, under our Climate Smart Commercial Horticulture Cambodia (CSmart) program. -
Seeing is believing for entrepreneurial Ghanaians
Farmers powered by successful agricultural project
Shei is one of 146 farmers powered by the successful project known as Accelerating Impact of Food Security (AIFS) – which is part of iDE’s broader Korsung agricultural initiative, which translates as “good farming practices” in local language, Dagbani – which ran between April 2021 and March 2022.
Read more: The US$225,000 project helped boost nutrition and food security -
Sylhet’s Resilient Market Ecosystem
Bangladeshi Region Characterized by Sufi Shrines and a Changing Climate
This Sylhet market ecosystem map shows the location of more than 2,360 iDE-powered touchpoints – local business advisors, livestock service providers, agricultural collection points, sales agents, entrepreneurs and latrine producers – all engaging with market actors, communities, and individuals – spread across Sylhet.
Read more: Sylhet’s Resilient Market Ecosystem -
Microloans Help Zambian Farmers Cover Their Nuts
iDE Works With Communities To Establish Catalytic Savings And Loans Groups
Tryness Nsofwa, 57, proudly inspects her field of groundnuts. She uproots a clump of pods from the damp, red earth and is pleased with what she sees. Cracking open a husk to reveal edible fruit inside, Tryness notes the nuts are well formed and plentiful. “It’s looking very nice,” she says of her crop. “I will keep some for my family and I will sell some.”
Read more: iDE is working with 379 community savings and loans groups across six Zambian provinces -
Nutrition Boosted By Income Generation in Bangladesh
Most households receiving training on poultry farming
Farhana Yeasmin, 24, remembers what it was like when her husband was the family’s sole earner. Because he was a day laborer and made little money, they struggled to even pay for basics. And if he couldn’t find work, the family sometimes skipped meals.
Read more: Gender discrimination leadings to poor nutritional status among women and children -
Nepali Women Fetched Water Before Daybreak
But an iDE program now pipes it to their villages
Kamala Magar’s day began before dawn. The Nepali farmer would get up and walk miles in the cold to fetch water for her family. It would take her most of the morning to retrieve just one jar, which she’d use to make breakfast before setting out for more.
Read more: A proven approach to build resilience among Nepalese farmers -
Climate-smart farming pays off
Innovative program focuses on increasing profits for small-scale farmers
By improving access to technical assistance, market information, quality inputs, and new technologies, iDE increases value-chain efficiency and competitiveness to benefit small-scale farmers.
Read more: Technical training improves incomes in Cambodia -
Adapting to climate change
The Farmer Resilience & Rebuilding Initiative in Mozambique
How iDE is helping smallholder farmers increase their resilience following both Cyclone Idai and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Read more: The farmer resilience and rebuilding initiative in Mozambique -
Expanding Nepal's Business Access to Improved Technologies for Agriculture (ENBAITA)
Post Project Sustainability, Impacts, and Food Security During the COVID-19 Crisis
Utilizing the ENBAITA networks is a proven and cost effective way to help Nepal agriculture to recover from COVID-19 and to re-invigorate trading and exchange between Nepal and India to support food security in Nepal.
Read more: Expanding Nepal's Business Access to Improved Technologies for Agriculture (ENBAITA) -
Even remote farmers are threatened by COVID-19
Our usual support during the growing season has been hampered, or completely suspended in order to prevent the spread of the disease, and that’s why we’re trying new methods to help rural farmers.
Because FBAs are entrepreneurs who connect urban suppliers and buyers to rural smallholder farmers, they can be a powerful force in a time of crisis.
Read more: The Impact of COVID19 on Food Security -
Students seek solutions for food preservation
Design students from the Colorado School of Mines develop context-oriented technology to strengthen the postharvest value chain in rural Mozambique
iDE works with university partners to explore technologies that promise to increase market options for fruit and vegetable farmers.
Read more: Learning how local context informs the design process -
The Disaster That Wasn't
Building resilience to famine in Ethiopia
There wasn't a disaster in Ethiopia in 2016, although they had one of their worst famine years ever. What changed from the 1980s and what can we learn from that for the future?
Read more: PERSPECTIVE: The Disaster That Wasn't -
New growth yields new hope
Lors Thmey social enterprise helps smallholder farmers improve the quality, quantity, and diversity of their production.
Lors Thmey operates as a business unit within iDE Cambodia with a mission to improve the economic resilience of poor rural households.
Read more: Lors Thmey Social Enterprise in Cambodia -
Life beyond coffee
ENTREPRENEUR PROFILE: Doña Julia Rivera learns to diversify in Honduras
Doña Julia lives in a region of Honduras called Marcala, known for its high-quality coffee production. Undernourishment is a widespread problem among coffee farmers in this region. Normally, farmers only earn an income during the four months of coffee harvesting—leaving farmers eight months each year, known as the “thin months,” to survive on their coffee earnings.
Read more: ENTREPRENEUR PROFILE: How Doña Julia Rivera overcomes the “thin months” with drip irrigation -
Creating a food safety net
Farmers build climate resilience in Ethiopia
iDE provides farmers access to improved seeds and training in proven agricultural practices to increase crop yields that enable small-scale households to have food year-round.
Read more: Addressing drought conditions with improved seeds and farming practices -
A new era of progress
Promoting modern agricultural practices in Mozambique
Farm business advisors are change agents who dispense information about best practices in technology, fertilizers, pest management, and postharvest storage through training sessions and demonstrations, as well as sell direct services, such as crop spraying.
Read more: Farmers benefit from peers who invest in technology and knowledge -
Increasing self-sufficiency
Farm Business Advisors address food security in Zambia
Refugees are making new lives with the assistance of agricultural extension agents who provide training, advice, products, and services so that they can build businesses around vegetable production.
Read more: Home vegetable plots are key to help refugees rebuild their lives and bodies -
Planting on the straight and narrow
Changing agricultural methods to increase yields sustainably in Vietnam
Compared to mainstream fertilizers and air-borne applications, Fertilizer Deep Placement produces 40% less chemical runoff and 30% fewer greenhouse gas emissions. It also increases yields, leading to a win-win for the farmer and for the environment.
Read more: Using new knowledge to address climate and environmental challenges -
Personal water harvest coaches
Watershed community management in Honduras
To overcome disasters such as crop disease, iDE works with farmers to diversify their crops and connect to markets, helping them have enough food and money to survive year-round.
Read more: Using water-management techniques to address drought and disease -
Farming is a business
Cambodia Agribusiness Development Facility (CADF) focuses on increasing the profit of small-scale commercial farmers
By improving access to technical assistance, market information, quality inputs, and new technologies, iDE increases value-chain efficiency and competitiveness to benefit small-scale farmers.
Read more: Cambodia Agribusiness Development Facility (CADF) focuses on increasing the profit of small-scale commercial farmers -
Seeding the market with the right agricultural technologies
Increasing crop yields through dynamic private sector partnerships.
Axial flow pumps, power-tiller operated seeders, and mechanical reapers have the potential to transform farming practices by increasing precision and conserving resources. iDE works with local entrepreneurs who can ensure farmers have access to these machines.
Read more: Making the right equipment available can spark an agricultural revolution -
Fueling the coffee craze
Value chains in Latin America
Honduras is the leading producer and exporter of coffee in Central America. Doña Julia Rivera is a coffee farmer in Marcala—a region of Honduras known for its high-quality, organic, and sustainably produced coffee beans. Working with iDE, Doña Julia has been able to expand her farm business with the help of drip irrigation and farmer training. Her farm is now an example in her community.
Read more: Identifying opportunities for small-scale farmers to add value and receive more income