Proposal onComprehensive Value Chain Program

Scaling of Staple Food ProductionIn Malawi, Rwanda and Zambia

Submitted to theGovernment of Sweden, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)

September 2010

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Table of Contents:

I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.................................................................................................................4

II. INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................5

AGRA-SWEDEN PARTNERSHIP:......................................................................................................................5AGRA IS CATALYZING A GREEN REVOLUTION:...................................................................................................5

III. BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE...................................................................................................6

AGRICULTURAL SECTOR BACKGROUND IN AFRICA:.............................................................................................6RATIONALE FOR AGRA’S INVOLVEMENT:.........................................................................................................8

IV. COUNTRY SPECIFIC CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES..........................................................10

MALAWI:.................................................................................................................................................10ZAMBIA:..................................................................................................................................................10RWANDA:................................................................................................................................................11OPPORTUNITIES FROM THIS REQUEST:...........................................................................................................12

V. PROPOSED PROGRAM STRATEGY...............................................................................................12

OVERALL GOAL:.........................................................................................................................................12SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES:.................................................................................................................................13EXPECTED RESULTS:...................................................................................................................................13GENDER APPROACH FOR THIS PROGRAM:.......................................................................................................13

VI. INTEGRATED INTERVENTIONS DESIGNED TO INCREASE PRODUCTION....................................14

MARKET ACCESS:......................................................................................................................................15PROGRAM ON AFRICA’S SEEDS SYSTEMS:.......................................................................................................17SOIL HEALTH PROGRAM:............................................................................................................................20POLICY PROGRAM: SECURITY OF LAND RIGHTS:...............................................................................................21FARMER ORGANIZATION SUPPORT CENTRE IN AFRICA (FOSCA):.......................................................................23

VII. MONITORING AND EVALUATION............................................................................................24

VIII. BUDGET.................................................................................................................................26

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AcronymsAD’s Agro DealersADAPT Agro-Dealer Project

AfDB African Development BankAGM Annual General Meeting

AGRA Alliance for a Green Revolution in AfricaAPSA Africa Parliamentary Support for Agriculture

AWEPA Association of European Parliamentarians with AfricaBMGF Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

CAADP Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development ProgramCGIAR Consultative Group on International Research

EAC East African CommunityEAGC Eastern Africa Grain Council

ECA United Nations Economic Commission for AfricaFAO Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations

FO’s Farmer OrganizationsFOSCA Farmers Organization Support Centre in Africa

GR Green RevolutionGLTN Global Land tool Network

IFAD International Fund for Agricultural DevelopmentIFDC International Fertilizer Development Centre

IFPRI International Food Policy Research InstituteIPCC International Panel on Climate Change

ISFM Integrated Soil Fertility ManagementJICA-RI Japan International Cooperation Agency Research Institute

MASP Malawi Agro-dealer support ProjectNEPAD New Partnership for Africa’s Development

OECD Organization for Economic Co-operation and DevelopmentPASS Program for Africa’s Seed Systems

PSTA II Plan for the Transformation of AgricultureRDI Rural Development Institute

SHF’s Smallholder farmers SHP Soil Health Program

SSA Sub Saharan AfricaUNECA United Nations Economic Commission for Africa

USAID United States Agency for International Development WASAA Women in Agribusiness in Sub-Saharan Africa Alliance

WFP World Food Program

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I. Executive Summary

AGRA-Sweden partnership:The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) and Sweden’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs are committed to improving food security and the quality of life of poor people – especially women – through the efforts of the people themselves. Together, the Government of Sweden and AGRA can forge a powerful partnership for addressing food security and promoting sustainable development in Africa. This proposal requests the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to provide US$8 million for a package of interventions in Malawi, Zambia and Rwanda. The countries chosen for this program have conditions that present valuable opportunities to intervene in agricultural systems, both in terms of natural endowments and interventions to date. The three countries are making progress, but significant effort is still needed to expand current activities and achievements. With this additional effort, AGRA will accelerate the pace of a comprehensive agricultural transformation.

AGRA is catalyzing a green revolution: AGRA is an African-based and African-led organization working with partners to catalyze change that rapidly and sustainably increases the productivity and incomes of poor smallholder farmers – most of whom are women – and achieves food security for Africa. AGRA was established on the basis that there is no one “silver bullet” that will address all the challenges facing Africa’s agriculture. Rather, success demands comprehensive change across Africa’s battered food value chain, along with supportive policies and appropriate technologies. AGRA works to support the countries’ strategies and with ministries of agriculture. AGRA’s work is guided by its vision: of a food secure and prosperous Africa, achieved through rapid, sustainable agricultural growth based on smallholder farmers.

Opportunities from this request:The proposed Sweden-AGRA partnership provides an opportunity for AGRA to deepen its work in seeds, soils, markets and policy work in the three target countries, with special focus on needs of women. This partnership will specifically support integrated efforts that will promote efficient and profitable output markets for farmers; increase smallholder farmer productivity from the use of new crop technologies and better soil and water management; and improve security of land rights to women and other vulnerable groups. These interventions will build upon each other for the greatest impact and sustainability. To support the above interventions and ensure maximum impact, the program will include activities targeted at farmer organizations (FOs) that serve poor producers.

Expected outcome:The project will contribute to increased food security and increased incomes among smallholder households – especially women – in the selected countries.

Project implementation: AGRA has already invested in the 3 targeted countries and has established relations with the respective governments, private sector and nongovernmental organizations. As such, project implementation will begin as soon as funding notification is received. A detailed logical framework is attached to this proposal showing the project design, including specific activities

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and outcomes. The project is expected to run over a 2 year period with most of the funds expended during the first year of project inception.

II. Introduction

AGRA-Sweden Partnership:The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) is pleased to submit a proposal to the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs to develop a comprehensive value chain program in Malawi, Zambia and Rwanda. This proposal requests the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to provide US$8 million for a package of interventions in the aforementioned three African countries. The proposed program will support and enable poor smallholder farmers, particularly women, to improve their lives by increasing their farm productivity as well as improving their access to output markets, which will lead to increased food security and incomes. Funding AGRA is in line with Sweden’s policies of supporting poor people’s – especially women’s – quality of life improvement through their own efforts. As AGRA works to support the countries’ National Poverty Eradication Strategies and within the framework of ministries of food and agriculture, funding AGRA is thus, in line with Sweden’s policy of support to country poverty reduction efforts and is consistent with the Paris Declaration and the Accra Agenda for Action. This proposal responds to the immediate opportunity to improve food security while addressing longer-term interventions needed to fight poverty through increase of household incomes for smallholder farmers.

AGRA is catalyzing a green revolution: The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) is an African-based and African-led organization working with our partners to catalyze change that rapidly and sustainably increases the productivity and incomes of poor smallholder farmers – most of whom are women – and achieves food security for Africa. AGRA was established on the basis that there is no one “silver bullet” that will address all the challenges facing Africa’s agriculture. Rather, success demands comprehensive change across Africa’s battered food value chain, along with supportive policies and appropriate technologies. AGRA’s work is guided by its vision: that of a food secure and prosperous Africa, achieved through rapid, sustainable agricultural growth based on smallholder farmers.

AGRA drives innovation, funds demonstration of viable approaches and works with our partners and Africa’s farmers to scale up successes in smallholder farming, with a strong focus on staple food crops in high-potential breadbasket areas. AGRA supports the African Union’s Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) and has an agreed memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) to help in the implementation of CAADP Compacts at country level. AGRA works in support of and builds partnerships with African governments, the private sector and civil society. It partners as well with farmers’ and women’s organizations; national and international research organizations, including the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR); bilateral and multilateral organizations.

AGRA’s overarching goal is to catalyze a uniquely African Green Revolution. We have set three main goals to achieve by the year 2020:

1. Reduce food insecurity by 50 percent in at least 20 countries.

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2. Double the incomes of 20 million smallholder families.3. Put at least 15 countries on track for attaining and sustaining a uniquely African Green

Revolution.

III. Background and Rationale

Agricultural Sector Background in Africa:Africa's food production per capita has been declining since the 1960s such that in 2009 over 265 million of the continent's people were malnourished and 30% were hungry1. Its current food situation is especially worrying since agricultural productivity levels among Africa’s farmers have remained flat or even declined for several decades (see Figure 1 below) while populations in most countries have tripled.

Figure 1: Cereal yield stagnation in Africa compared to other world regions

As long as productivity remains low, rural poverty will persist: Agriculture is at the centre of life and economies in Africa. About 80 percent of Africans depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, most of these through small farms of less than two hectares. The very low productivity of these farms – in no small part due to the constraints that women farmers experience – fuels the cycles of poverty and hunger in Africa2. Moreover, it limits the export potential of the continent's agricultural products - a potentially important income growth source – by reducing their competitiveness3. The continent must now develop and invest in solutions to its farmer productivity and food supply problems or face greater hunger, instability and lost opportunity.

Women are particularly affected, yet they hold much potential: A particularly significant dimension of the poverty and food insecurity problem is that treating all smallholders the same has hindered the kind of impact that would result from meeting the 1 FAO Director-General during the 26th session of FAO’s Regional Conference for Africa in Luanda, Angola, May 2010.2 Over 70% of Africa's poor live in the rural areas (International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) website: http://www.ruralpovertyportal.org/web/guest/region/home/tags/africa ).3 NEPAD and FAO, 2002: Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP)

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specific needs of women farmers, traders and processors. Due to unequal social relations, technological advance can even lead to inequitable outcomes skewed against women. Empirical evidence shows that gender inequalities impact negatively on families and the larger economy, a finding supported by macroeconomic analyses on Africa by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the World Bank. For example, in “Can Africa Claim the 21st Century?” (2000), a study by the three institutions concludes that, gender inequality is both an economic and social issue, and that greater gender equality could be a potent force for accelerated poverty reduction in Africa4. Comparative evidence from Kenya suggests that men's gross value of output per hectare is 8 percent higher than women's. However, if women had the same human capital endowments and used the same amounts of factors and inputs as men, the value of their output would increase by some 22 percent. Similar results have been recorded in other countries, such as Tanzania, and Burkina Faso. Understanding the nature of the disparities between men and women in agriculture, and acting deliberately to remove them, is one of the key tasks of poverty reduction strategies.

Climate change is now a complicating factor: The growing effects of climate change are compounding these problems because African agriculture is largely rain-fed and land degradation in recent decades has left natural ecologies fragile. Over the course of this century, rising temperatures and changing precipitation patterns are expected to reduce crop productivity by up to 50%, increase water stress for 75 to 250 million Africans by 2020 and result in more extreme weather events5. These latter are the biggest threats to farmers; they further affect agriculture by damaging the infrastructure that is so necessary for successful marketing systems.

Broad-based agricultural transformation is the answer:Throughout the world, sustained increases in farmer productivity have primarily been sparked by four principal interventions: 1) the introduction of new and better seed; 2) the creation of more fertile soils on which crops are grown, 3) improved market access, and 4) enabling agricultural policies. The International Food Policy Research Institute's (IFPRI) analysis indicates that doubling staple crop productivity across Africa by 2015 would raise average national GDP growth to 5.5% a year, lifting over 70 million people out of poverty. Furthermore, these gains would ensure household and national food security and turn Africa from a food deficit area to a surplus region with 20-40% lower food prices.

Glimmers of a potential African Green Revolution are evident in localized situations where farmers have gained access to improved technologies and favorable marketing opportunities. Yet overall, disjointed and gender-blind efforts hinder the widespread agricultural transformation required. Only through comprehensive, gender-equitable efforts that involve sustainable practices will it be possible to increase farm incomes and eradicate rural poverty. The turnaround is best anchored in technical, social, institutional and market change. Past attempts to bring about this broad change have faltered because they tended to emphasize only one or two aspects of agriculture.

4 Economic Commission for Africa. 2004. The Missing Link in Growth and Sustainable development: Closing the Gap.5 Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR4 - WGII, 2007.

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Rationale for AGRA’s involvement:AGRA’s integrated programs and partnerships are designed to promote rapid, sustainable agricultural growth based on smallholder farmers. AGRA’s work across the food value chain facilitates and supports government and private sector efforts to improve the productivity of the food staples such as maize, cassava, rice, groundnuts and cowpeas. AGRA works to expand and sustain the availability of improved seed and fertilizer, improve farmers’ access to markets, strengthen effective farmers’ organizations, and improve the policy environment – and do so in ways that address the specific needs of women and benefit them. Together, these are the interventions proven to transform agriculture around the world. The activities emphasize strengthening overall livelihoods of individuals, conferring a high degree of sustainability.

AGRA is particularly well positioned to intervene in African agriculture to dramatically raise farm productivity and clink smallholders to markets. The following key features of AGRA’s work make it uniquely suited to triggering an equitable green revolution:

Investing across the food value chain: through four main programmatic emphases in seeds, soil health, market access and policy whose operations are increasingly being integrated. Each of the programs operates according to careful, in-depth situational assessments and invests substantially through strategically designed interventions in AGRA's countries of focus. Additional attention to credit provision and new work in extension, farmer organization support and water management are all set to significantly enhance the program investments. Altogether, this approach to agriculture in Africa ensures that no one feature of the food system can cause the expected transformation to falter, as has happened in the past.

Focusing on Africa’s core staples – maize, cassava, sorghum/millet, rice, and grain legumes – means that AGRA helps the category of smallholders that make up a majority of Africa’s poor farmers. Given their scale, unlocking the various opportunities available for these staples results in the most progress in food and incomes.

Creative partnerships with public and private sector which make the technologies, knowledge and skills smallholders need to improve their farming and marketing efforts available and accessible. This particular AGRA capability and approach will prove especially critical to ensure that the efforts endure well beyond AGRA's own interventions. For example, the seed program's work to link public crop breeding research institutions with private seed enterprises and networks of agro-dealers (most of which are rural SMEs) stimulates a sustainable robustness in seed systems.

Increasing attention to women’s needs: AGRA recognizes that women are central to an African green revolution that reduces both hunger and poverty. Realizing that promoting gender equality could be a potent force for accelerated poverty reduction in Africa6, AGRA is giving increasing attention to the specific needs of women and tailoring its activities to ensure that women benefit substantively, including bringing on board professional gender expertise.

Through well-designed and executed monitoring and evaluation, AGRA is continually refining its approach to the transformation task to ensure the greatest impact on the poor and food security. Furthermore, internal and external financial and program systems audit processes are

6 Economic Commission for Africa (ECA). 2004. The Missing Link in Growth and Sustainable Development: Closing the Gap.

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carried out on a regular basis. To catalyze change AGRA works across three integrated portfolios of strategic activities in 13 countries: Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

AGRA is well suited to carry out the proposed project as it has the requisite capacity to successfully implement the proposed projects. To date AGRA has committed over US$ 158 million towards agricultural transformation in 13 African countries. Thus far, programmatic experience shows that AGRA’s contribution can deliver real impact towards higher incomes and increased farm output. With careful targeting of women in each activity, the benefits are expected to accrue to them disproportionately. Selected achievements and lessons learned indicate AGRA’s huge potential to achieve its Green Revolution goals: The Program on Africa's Seed Systems (PASS) has accelerated the release of 137 improved

crop varieties with 12,700 MT of certified seed produced and over 9,390 agro-dealers trained. PASS support for new dynamism in the private sector, through Africa’s small and medium seed companies, has increased availability of improved crop varieties to smallholder farmers.

The Soil Health Program’s (SHP) extension activities have established over 2,000 large scale fertilizer use demonstrations in the 2009/2010 cropping season in the 13 AGRA focal countries. Adopting integrated soil fertility management practices increases yield – in 3 years, 5,000 farm households in 20 pilot sites in Niger adopted better natural resource management technologies, producing 50% more food as a result.

Agro-dealers are critical for linking the flow of improved seed varieties and fertilizers with farmers – the AGRA supported Agro-Dealer Program (ADP) has so far established a network of 9,200 agro-dealers, leading to the increase in volumes of improved seed, fertilizer and other inputs made available to smallholder farmers. AGRA has seen impressive results through its work in this space in Kenya where travel distance for farmers to access inputs on average decreased from 17 km to 4 km.

Market Access has helped farmers’ to aggregate marketable volumes of the right quality and linked them to the World Food Program’s Purchase for Progress (P4P) and other major buyers. Substantial income improvements of up to 30% compared to farm gate prices have resulted. Bulking of crop produce by smallholder farmers increases volume of sales and income

AGRA’s Policy Program, in partnership with a USAID team and the Ministry of Agriculture in Malawi provided maize pricing and trade policy options to the Government of Malawi that contributed to the lifting of the export ban and freed the high floor price on maize that denied farmers market opportunities. Working with local stakeholders to analyze policies and advocate for policy change produces positive results – AGRA mobilized local stakeholders to support the review of seed and fertilizer laws in Ghana and Nigeria. The Plant Bill was approved in Ghana following this process. In addition, following discussions with AGRA and other partners, the Government of Tanzania recently announced a major policy change: it has now liberalized foundation seed production.

Through Innovative Finance, AGRA and its partners have provided loan guarantees to leverage US$ 160 million from commercial banks to provide loans to farmers and others involved in the agricultural value chain. The loans are available in five countries: Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda. Lending to small scale farmers represents 75% of all loan portfolios.

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IV. Country Specific Challenges and Opportunities

Malawi:In this southeast African nation of 14 million people, 85 percent of the workforce is engaged in agriculture. Malawi’s GDP per capita of US$756 is one of the lowest in the world, and more than 65 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. The smallholder sub-sector occupies 1.8 million hectares; with over one-half of the households having less than one hectare, and one-quarter having less than 0.5 hectare. The majority of households are unable to meet their food requirements with about 27% of under-five children in Malawi are underweight, and nearly 50% are stunted (UNICEF).

Farm productivity is generally low with only one-third of these farmers using fertiliser and most of them using less prolific local seed. Another major challenge facing smallholder farmers in Malawi is that of post harvest loss. The post harvest sector in Malawi is very crucial in ensuring food security where over 90% percent of the food supply is produced in the rural areas of the country under the rain-fed system. There is one major harvest in the year which has to cater for the food needs of both the urban and rural areas throughout the year.

Malawi’s government remains strongly committed to improving the country’s food security, through supporting and revitalizing food production and small-scale farming with considerable success already achieved. In 2009-2010, the government allocated 12.8 percent of its annual budget for this purpose. This exceeds the 10 percent target set by the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP), an initiative of the African Union’s New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). Malawi was the sixth country to sign the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) within the COMESA region and the eighteenth country overall in Africa.

Role and Status of women in the agricultural sector:Women contribute significantly to the country’s agricultural sector. They constitute about 60% of the fulltime farmers and contribute nearly 70% of farm labor7. This notwithstanding, the sector is characterized by very significant gender inequalities in areas of labor, access to and control over factors of production such as land, credit, skills and decisions on benefits accruing from inputs. Few women have secure land rights. Access to credit is the basis of increased productivity and incomes is also a major challenge to women with only 10-15% having access to credit compared to 45-55% of men. Even where women can obtain credit, men dictate its use.

Zambia:This Southern African nation has a population of 12 million people, 5.3 million hectares of arable land, and a per capita income of US$800. Agriculture employs 85 percent of the labor force, yet accounts for only 17 percent of total GDP, and 68 percent of the population live below the poverty line. Nearly one-in-four children under the age of 5 is malnourished. Key challenges for Zambia’s smallholder farmers include limited access to credit to purchase inputs and equipment, and poor road and storage infrastructure. While 35 percent of farmers use inputs such as fertilizer, improper use keeps yields at only 10 – 40 percent of potential. The

7 Government of Malawi. 2000. National Gender Policy.

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customary land tenure system also fails to provide farmers with land security, and is particularly disadvantageous to women.

Yet, Zambia is endowed with abundant water, an ideal climate for agricultural production and ample arable land. In addition, Zambia’s smallholder farmers are embracing innovative institutional and technical solutions to their challenges, and the country has begun boosting its farm production. While Zambia has not yet signed its CAADP Compact, it has completed its technical analysis in preparation for it CAADP roundtable and is expected to sign the CAADP Compact soon. After growing by only 2.2 percent in 2006, the agriculture sector grew at a rate of 7.2 percent in 2007.

Role and Status of women in the agricultural sector:In Zambia, women are responsible for 49% of family labor allocated to crop production, while men supply 39% and children 12%. On food crops, men prepare the land while women plant, weed, harvest, store, market and process the produce. In general, men control factors of production-capital, credit and technology. Few women have security of tenure of much of the land, particularly under the patrilineal system under which children inherit from the father’s lineage. Under customary law, household property is regarded as belonging to the husband, thus women have limited claim at death or divorce8. In general, land ownership and acquisition continue to pose a major hindrance to women’s participation in the agricultural sector. Access to credit necessary to engage in market oriented agriculture that is the basis of increased productivity and incomes is a challenge for women.

Rwanda:Agriculture employs 90 percent of all workers and accounts for 43 percent of GDP in this East African country of almost ten million people. Production of staple food crops takes place on small plots, many less than 0.2 hectares. Their low levels of production leave people trapped in poverty and make Rwanda a net importer of food. According to a 2006 analysis, 28 percent of the rural population in Rwanda is considered food insecure, and an additional 24 percent considered highly vulnerable to food insecurity. Almost one in five children under five is malnourished. There are many factors leading to chronic food insecurity in Rwanda, including soil erosion, and lack of access to markets and finance (USAID). These problems are further exacerbated by climate change-related shocks which lead to more volatile, highly variable rainfall in Rwanda, placing agriculture in a vulnerable and unpredictable position.

Role and Status of women in the agricultural sector:Rwanda leads the rest of the world in terms of women’s representation and participation in top leadership in both parliament and others key structures. Following the second general election (2008) after the 1994 genocide, Rwanda became the first country ever to have a majority of women in parliament, with at least 55% of MP positions going to women. A majority of Rwandan women are subsistence farmers, engaged in household food production, marketing and processing. It is however noted that, despite these great strides, women are still limited in terms of control over economic resources due to culture and tradition. Despite the Government’s demonstrated practical and policy interventions, women in agriculture still face challenges that need attention to help them to become competitive and benefit from sector investments. Women have inadequate access to extension services and information necessary for raising productivity and incomes. The about one-third of the families that are headed by 8 World Bank. Milimo, M. et al. 2002. Zambia Strategic Country Gender Assessment. A Report of the World Bank

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women are categorized as vulnerable from the perspective of income and other welfare indices. Property ownership rights and access to land is governed by customary laws that provide for land to be transferred to the son from the father.

For the last several years, the Rwandan government has been moving urgently to spur agricultural production through an ambitious green revolution program. Rwanda was the first country to sign the CAADP Compact in 2007. Rwanda’s commitment is registering success: early efforts have increased farmers’ access to quality seed and fertilizers, leading to a 15 percent increase in food production in 2008 and a 16 percent increase in 2009.

Opportunities from this request:The proposed Sweden-AGRA partnership provides an opportunity for AGRA to deepen its work in seeds, soils, markets and policy work with special attention being given to women in three selected countries. The partnership will seek to increase agricultural productivity, food security and income for smallholder farmers in the selected countries through access to and use of improved seeds and improved soil fertility. This request will promote in-field water management practices that will help poor famers cope with wide swings in rainfall. The program will also seek to improve security of land rights to women and other vulnerable groups. The partnership will promote efficient and profitable output markets that offer higher returns to smallholder farmers. To support the above interventions and ensure maximum impact, the program will include activities targeted at farmer organizations (FOs) that serve poor producers.

V. Proposed Program StrategyAGRA is requesting US $8 million from the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs to support a package of interventions in Malawi, Zambia and Rwanda. The countries chosen for this program have conditions that present valuable opportunities to intervene in agricultural systems, both in terms of natural endowments and interventions to date. Furthermore, AGRA has already made significant investments in these countries and has well established partners in private, government and nongovernmental sectors. The three countries are making progress, but significant effort is still needed to round out and expand current activities and achievements. Without this additional effort, comprehensive transformation will not be possible. The program strategy will seek to enhance smallholder access to improved technologies of high quality seeds of improved varieties; improve soil fertility management and fertilizer use; develop rural input markets to deliver appropriate technologies to smallholder farmers; improve access to markets and reduce post harvest losses; develop strong policy support systems focusing on women’s land rights; and strengthen farmers’ organizations that support smallholder farmers.

Overall goal:AGRA intends to extend current efforts towards agricultural transformation in the chosen countries. The main objective of this program is to rapidly scale up food production in the three selected sub-Saharan African countries and increase agricultural productivity, food security and income among smallholder households – particularly among women. Promoting gender equity will run throughout the project process and results.

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Specific objectives: To promote efficient and profitable output markets that offer higher returns to

smallholder farmers; To increase smallholder farmer productivity from the use of new crop technologies that

are delivered to them efficiently and effectively; To increase agricultural productivity through better soil health and water management; To improve security of land rights to accelerate investment in sustainable soil, land and

water management technologies; and To build the capacity of farmer organizations to improve their ability to respond to the

agriculture-related needs of their members, specifically smallholders.

Expected results: Increased smallholder production from the use of higher-yielding crop varieties and

improved agronomic practices – all accessible to women farmers; Higher returns from increased quantities of produce marketed due to reduced post-

harvest losses and linkage to markets, with women’s participation and benefits from marketing rising;

Increased adoption of productivity enhancing soil, land and water management technologies and practices, especially by women, due to enhanced security of land tenure;

More effective and efficient farmer organizations, with higher participation of women; Increased/enhanced participation of women: women to comprise at least 40% of the

beneficiaries impacted.

Gender approach for this program: Women are central to an African Green Revolution. AGRA recognizes that women predominate in African agriculture: they shoulder a majority of farm labor with a minority of resources, while simultaneously raising children and running households. Yet women operate with serious constraints. They often have unequal access to land, farm inputs, financing and education and have limited control over these factors of production. In tandem, despite their substantial contribution to agricultural production, they receive and control few of its benefits. In the absence of rewards accruing to them, there is little incentive for them to invest in improving their farm-related activities. Conversely, providing women with equal access to resources and decision-making would have important poverty-reduction benefits for the family.

Women helping women:Any efforts to intervene in smallholder farms must therefore include solutions to the particular challenges Africa’s women farmers’ face. Empirical findings by AGRA pointed out that access to information for women farmers is mostly from other female farmers. This “women helping women” approach will help guide and enrich our gender strategy. AGRA is giving increasing attention to the specific needs of women and tailoring its activities to ensure that women benefit substantively, including bringing on board professional gender expertise.

To ensure that women are involved in and that they benefit from this program, AGRA will take the following approaches:

Designing and delivering productivity and market access training to meet women’s particular needs and schedules;

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Strategic advocacy on issues that marginalize women in institutions such as farmer organizations;

Practical interventions that support areas in which women are currently benefiting such as rural female SME owners becoming agro-dealers;

Building women’s leadership capacity to enable them to influence the agenda of farmer organizations;

Strengthening the women helping women approach by ensuring that some women farmers or SME owners are well informed and equipped with knowledge and skills that could be provided to other farmers

VI. Integrated Interventions Designed to Increase ProductionAGRA’s programs in four integrated areas of seeds, soil health, markets and policies; coupled with strong partnerships across the African continent and cross-cutting initiatives such as strengthening farmer based organizations and innovative financing, are addressing the challenges faced by smallholder farmers. The proposed project will build on AGRA’s existing and well-documented successful integrated interventions designed to increase agricultural production while also building the value chain for sustainable growth. AGRA is already investing in Malawi, Zambia and Rwanda and additional support from the Government of Sweden will allow AGRA to greatly augment its current work in the three selected countries, building food security while increasing household income.

Methodology:AGRA, in transforming today’s rural poverty into tomorrow’s prosperity has developed methodologies for identifying partners and projects to maximize impact while remaining nimble and agile enough to address specific needs in the agriculture value chain. To this end, AGRA is a granting organization. This grant based implementation approach allows considerable flexibility enabling rapid response to initiatives that respond to emerging social, economic, commercial, institutional and political landscapes at various levels (community, national and regional). AGRA brings value to the agricultural space by funding demonstrations, driving innovation and collaborating with partners to scale-up successes. The AGRA structure is highly decentralized for decision making purposes, enabling it to work closely with the beneficiaries on the ground. The grantees have day-to-day decision making capacity. AGRA staff takes responsibility for progress through overview, and responds to the on–the-ground situation accordingly. This decentralized approach makes for greater flexibility and accountability both towards our grantees and donor organizations.

Key Stakeholder Groups and Target BeneficiariesAGRA recognizes that transforming agriculture is an enormous undertaking requiring meaningful partnerships to catalyze change. As such, the organization engages a full range of partners including: government officials, public institutions private sector enterprises and beneficiaries in building, implementing and strategic overview of our projects. AGRA puts beneficiaries, particularly women as they represent the largest number of smallholder farmers, at the centre of our approach. This approach of emphasizing participation and leadership in projects reinforces AGRA’s strategy which focuses on smallholder farmers, while ensuring sustainability. The target beneficiaries of the proposed project will include smallholder farmers, agro -dealers, SME’s dealing in farm equipment, seed companies, fertilizer wholesalers, farmer-based organizations, extension service agencies and government. Interventions across the

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agricultural value chain that AGRA will focus on through the Sweden-AGRA partnership in the 3 selected countries for this proposal are highlighted below:

Market Access:Specific objective addressed: To promote efficient and profitable output markets that offer higher returns to smallholder farmers.

Launched in mid-2008, AGRA’s Market Access program directs investment and resources into realizing meaningful improvements to the market infrastructure of the core food staples in Africa. Market investments are the major activities planned within this program specifically intended to ensure that farmers receive higher returns from the emerging surpluses resulting from crop productivity investments – including those of AGRA. Africa’s smallholder farmers are typically poor, fragmented and lack the access to credit, storage, information and markets that would help them raise their living standards.

The most severe marketing constraint for poor farmers is the combination of inadequate storage facilities, poor transport infrastructure, inadequate equipment and produce handling methods – resulting in post-harvest losses of about 30% of crop production on average in Africa. This erodes benefits from productivity gains and seriously impedes the achievement of food security for the continent’s poor. Moreover, smallholders often do not leverage their numbers to secure better prices. In addition, there are too few market channels – including non-food uses of their output – to ensure poor farmers of ready markets. Finally, the overall policy environment for agricultural markets often impedes farmers’ commercial efforts, limiting the income improvements they can realize from their produce. Market Access’ objectives address each of these issues in the AGRA countries of focus.

Women feature to varying degrees in Africa’s food markets but their role is unquestionably major. In general, they carry out 90% of the processing of food crops and 60% of harvesting and marketing. Yet they face real constraints in performing and improving their market-related tasks. Providing resources and support to women involved in marketing, therefore, will have real impact on food security.

The Market Access program seeks to enhance the work of its AGRA counterparts. Examples of the programs working together include:

SHP is using legume cultivation (e.g. soybeans) to improve soil fertility through nitrogen fixation. However, because farmers do not have markets for their legumes, they tend to accord them low priority. The Markets program is helping to link these farmers to legume buyers such as WFP’s P4P so that they earn income from these crops as well. Market Access has co-funded two such projects with SHP.

PASS has developed improved cassava varieties. Market Access is promoting the adoption of these improved high yielding varieties among farmers and then linking them to feed manufacturers who are using cassava as a substitute for maize.

Soil Health and PASS: Markets is stimulating agro-dealers to become produce off-takers, in addition to their input-supply activity.

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Policy: in the course of its work, Markets identifies issues that need policy attention and supplies evidence required to form or modify policy. The Policy program then conducts the necessary analysis and ensures that advocacy strategies arise to address the issues.

The opportunities for market development activities in the three countries are as follows:

Malawi: Malawi’s substantial public investment in agriculture has resulted in maize production growing at a remarkable rate of 11% per annum over the five years from 2005 to 2009. However, much remains to be done in the area of post-harvest handling and storage. AGRA’s market investments in Malawi thus far include support to enhance market information availability, reduce post-harvest losses and increase smallholder farmer participation in improved structured trade systems.

Rwanda: In an effort to rebuild its agricultural sector, the Rwandan Government has put in place the Strategic Plan for the Transformation of Agriculture (PSTA II). Existing interventions in the agricultural value chains are focused on farmer training to improve productivity, but minimal effort has been focused on market linkages. Additionally, there are a few interventions focused on increasing access to finance and storage;

Zambia: The country has substantial agricultural potential with largely unexploited land, abundant water, and a good climate. However, it has not been able to capitalize on these opportunities owing to several key factors, including poor road and storage infrastructure which have resulted in high transport costs, high post-harvest losses and limited access to markets for many rural farmers. While a warehouse receipt system is in place, there has not been much donor activity focused on training on appropriate usage of warehouse receipt systems for farmers or on storage infrastructure. The country has a commodity exchange but currently it does not serve smallholder farmers (SHFs).

East and Southern Africa: AGRA is partnering with USAID’s COMPETE program, the East African Community (EAC) and the Eastern Africa Grain Council (EAGC) to develop and advocate for policy on grain grades and standards. The Policy program will work through the Policy Action Nodes to support the drafting of laws and suggest effective enforcement methods. This activity focuses on the East African Community (EAC) at the moment but is planned to expand to SADC and COMESA countries. Having these grades and standards will go a long way towards promoting aggregation of smallholder produce and trade.

At the regional level of marketing activities, there is a new organization whose mission is to support women traders: Women in Agribusiness in Sub-Saharan Africa Alliance (WASAA). It has branch offices in eight (8) countries: Mozambique, Malawi, South Africa, Angola, Tanzania, Zambia, Kenya and Zimbabwe. WASAA’s vision is to promote access to markets and increased trade for women entrepreneurs across the agricultural value chain. The Market Access program believes that developing this higher level of markets has impact at the grassroots level by ensuring that women at different levels have room to expand and progress their marketing activities.

Specific market access activities planned are:

Provide market linkage support to farmers involved in Soil Health’s integrated soil fertility management (ISFM) which involves increased production of legumes. Poor farmers often do not have ready markets for these additional crops so the Markets program provides the linkages they need.

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Provide producers with storage facilities near their farms and build capacity in farmer organizations to progress their marketing activities.

Help smallholders engage with structured systems (such as Zambia’s commodity exchange) by aggregating their produce, ensuring access to storage and training to meet quality standards.

Support stakeholder convenings towards regional grain grades and standards, expected to take place from July 2010.

Capacity building support to the Women in Agribusiness in Sub-Saharan Africa Alliance (WASAA)

Expected outcomes/impact:

The Market Access interventions are expected to result in:

The target farmers who produce surpluses seeing their revenues rise by 25% because they will receive a greater share of the market price margins and will have more produce volumes for the market due to reduced post-harvest losses.

The incomes of target farmers who have surplus produce increasing by 28%. This income improvement will result from the higher prices they will obtain because processed produce commands a premium and its lengthened shelf life puts the farmer in a stronger bargaining position.

The project beneficiaries seeing their incomes rise by 50% as produce that currently goes to waste is made available to the market, enabling them to sell greater quantities.

Regional trade improving, thereby widening markets for smallholder farmers who will have the credit they need to invest in expanding their output. Consumers will benefit from stabilised prices and trade between food surplus and deficit areas.

Program on Africa’s Seeds Systems:Specific objective addressed: To increase smallholder farmer productivity from the use of new crop technologies that are delivered to them efficiently and effectively.

AGRA’s Program on Africa’s Seed Systems (PASS) raises farmer productivity by promoting viable seed markets, developing new varieties of high-yielding, locally-adapte crops and improving the ways in which farmers’ access this critical input. PASS is AGRA’s earliest and most established program. In this proposal, PASS activities in the three countries will focus on two major areas:

1. Seed enterprise support - development of seed enterprises to ensure multiplication and distribution of certified seed and improved planting material; and

2. Agro-dealer development - recruitment and development of agro-dealers. Women active in rural SMEs will be particularly suitable candidates for agro-dealerships.

Seed enterprise support:One of the primary goals of the PASS strategy is the establishment of a vibrant, competitive African seed sector populated with numerous seed enterprises, independently pursuing profitable operations while at the same time availing improved seeds to smallholder farmers who are constantly realizing miserable yields due to continuous use of inferior seeds. PASS supports small, rural seed enterprises to multiply and disseminate good quality seed of locally

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adapted varieties. The seed enterprises can be private seed companies, NGOs, public institutions, or farmer organizations.9

The approach PASS uses to support seed enterprises takes various forms: (1) Giving a one-time grant to increase seed production capacity; (2) educating farmers on the value of using improved seed; (3) packaging seed in small affordable packages; (4) offering business development services through a team of seasoned consultants; (5) offering short term specialized training courses at the Seed Enterprise Management Institute, that is housed at the University of Nairobi in Kenya; and (6) provision of loans through venture capital investment.

In Eastern and Southern Africa, PASS has supported enterprises in eight countries; Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique. However, three countries Rwanda, Malawi and Zambia still need special consideration given the fewer numbers of seed enterprises supported.

Malawi: In total PASS has supported four enterprises: two seed companies, one farmer association and a national research program working with farmer associations to produce cassava and sweet potato planting materials. Total seed produced by the two companies and a farmer association following AGRA funding ranged from 1,031MT in 2009 to 1,547.7 MT in 2010 as opposed to 540 MT before funding. There is still a need for the supply of seeds in the country, given the awareness created by these enterprises through demonstrations, field days, radio programs and participation in agricultural shows. Also following AGRA support to the national breeding institutes, more new, well-adapted varieties of maize, beans, cassava and sweet potatoes have been released and their production and eventual dissemination to farmers is desired. The anticipated funding is therefore timely.

Zambia: To date only two seed enterprises have been funded in Zambia. One seed company in the last two years produced 2,246.1 MT against 587 MT before it received funding. The government of Zambia has been concerned about the low numbers of farmers using improved seed. It is encouraging them to form associations and then obtain training to produce quality declared seed which meets minimum quality standards. This is being ensured by the seed regulatory body in collaboration with public breeders who are supplying foundation seed. Some of these farmer associations are being engaged by some seed companies as their out-growers. The proposed project will build on these efforts.

In Rwanda two seed enterprises have received funding: the first and only private seed company in Rwanda, and a farmer-cooperative. The seed industry is severely under-developed, with seed of cereal staples such as maize being imported directly from neighboring country seed companies in Kenya and Uganda. This in itself poses a few challenges: (i) Quantities are insufficient as the supplying countries prefer to first meet local demand before considering orders from outside. Therefore amounts requested, leave alone the varieties of choice, are often not obtained (ii) Varieties often supplied are neither adaptable nor having the traits preferred by farmers (iii) Seed comes in late hence farmers miss the season. In view of this, it is important that these efforts continue to a point where there is sufficient level of seed to meet a significant proportion of farmers’ needs. The government of Rwanda now more than

9 The crop mix will depend on the country, the particular region within that country, and the capacity of the organization. For instance private seed companies will rarely handle vegetative crops like cassava, while farmer organizations & NGOs have no capacity to handle hybrids.

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ever realizes the need to be self sufficient in seed requirements and is encouraging entrepreneurs to invest in seed business and also assisting them to acquire some land for production. AGRA will partner and support these national efforts.

Agro-dealer development:In Zambia, AGRA funded a program to develop 438 agro dealers (AD) in 9 districts in the provinces of Copperbelt, Eastern, and Central. So far, the project has surpassed its target and is aiming at having 500 ADs recruited by the end of the project in 2011. The grant was used to identify, train and certify ADs, and assist them to conduct market development activities to develop demand for improved seeds among smallholders. PASS activities within this program aim to build on this success by expanding the AD work into additional districts. Zambia is a huge country with very poor infrastructure beyond the trunk roads and rail networks. It is also sparsely populated posing a real challenge in reaching rural households. With this project, 3 more districts will be added, one from each of the provinces. At least another 180 ADs will be trained, certified and linked to suppliers.

There is also need to support the development of the national agro dealer association so that it can continue to offer member services in future. The support will go towards establishing a formal management of the association as well as the necessary structures to enable it to function as a professional entity. A constitution and Articles of Association will be drafted and an annual general meeting (AGM) will be convened, at which the constitution & structures will be ratified and the management elected.

In Malawi, PASS has been developing AD networks through the Malawi Agro-dealer Support Project – MASP – which ran for 3 years until May 31, 2010, targeting the rural underserved areas. At the moment, MASP is in a no-cost extension phase, with reduced activities, until end of September 2010. However, assessment has shown that administrative challenges have adversely affected the project's impact. Thus, although over 1,000 ADs received training, only 350 remain active full-time (against a target of 600). There is therefore a critical need to strengthen the Malawian implementing agency as well as the agro dealer association in order to ensure sustainable impact.

Through this proposed project, the Malawian agency will receive operational support to strengthen its structures – notably the Board. At the same time the agro dealer association will also be assisted to conduct an AGM and put in place an elected management body. The project will work to design and conduct targeted training of existing and new ADs to ensure they establish sustainable businesses. The target is to develop 100 new ADs and to give specialized training to another 100 existing Ads, including those who have become inactive. The selection of the ADs will be closely correlated with the existence of seed enterprises in order to promote the linkages and ensure source of marketable seed supplies.

Expected outcomes/impact:

Over time the outcomes from the PASS projects will include:

Increased availability – in both quantity and geographical spread – of improved staple crop varieties through expert smallholders, seed businesses and agro-dealers.

More women engaging in agro-dealerships in the rural areas. More knowledgeable seed businesspeople able to advise smallholders on seed matters.

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Soil Health Program:Specific objective addressed: To increase agricultural productivity through better soil health and water management.

The overall mission of the Soil Health Program (SHP) is to increase income, improve food security and reduce poverty in Africa by promoting the efficient and economically sustainable supply of fertilizer to farmers in Africa; and promoting the uptake of appropriate integrated soil fertility management (ISFM) technology packages by smallholder farmers. SHP will work closely with PASS to spread knowledge and stimulate widespread use of improved agricultural methods in the three countries.

Often, women have fewer production skills than men because they lack access to training in agronomic practices. SHP will make a concerted effort in targeting women and ensuring the demonstrations and training are as suitable to the women’s needs as possible. The use of grain-legumes as part of ISFM will also lead to improved household nutrition through better supply and use of grain legumes that are protein-rich. This will be particularly beneficial to women and children that have limited access to nutritious foods. Opportunities for AGRA Soil Health program intervention in the three countries will include:

Malawi: There are ISFM technology packages available but lack of capacity to spread them. Pigeon peas, groundnuts and beans have potential, including in export markets.

Rwanda: Various government and donor initiatives are promoting integrated soil fertility management (ISFM) and a few on-the-shelf technology packages are available. However, resource constraints in the extension system coupled with poorly equipped agro-dealers hinder the widespread, consistent demonstration and sustained adoption of these packages.

Zambia: Whereas ISFM research is ongoing, it is difficult for technology packages to reach poor farmers because the government extension system is understaffed.

Water management for climate resiliency: for Africa, the major climate change impact revolves around water availability. Rainfall variability and rainfall intensity are expected to increase, intensifying the need to make the best use of water when it does become available and store some for when it does not rain. In addition, temperature increases will result in more water loss to the natural cycle and water scarcity is expected to grow with population. The continent’s poor small-scale farmers are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate variability.

Water management solutions including storage, water-lifting, micro-irrigation and water harvesting can have a significant impact on labor productivity and yield optimization while serving to mitigate the effects of increased variability. Moreover, ensuring adequate soil humidity is critical for the effective use of fertilizers.

Activities planned across the three countries will:

Extend integrated soil fertility management (ISFM) systems to support full-scale solutions: support large-scale promotion of micro-dosing, cereal-legume intercropping, and cereal-legume rotations in locations where they seem to be especially promising. This objective will demonstrate that ISFM, including fertilizer use as critical to improving yields for farmers;

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Train farmer organisations and extension staff on good agronomic practices and conservation agriculture that have both production and environmental benefits;

Promote in-field water management practices that will help poor farmers cope with wide swings in rainfall

Expected outcomes/impact

Increased knowledge among smallholder farmers on the benefits of adopting ISFM practices that integrate fertilizers (both organic and inorganic);

Increased knowledge and interests among farmers in adopting conservation agriculture (including agro-forestry);

More knowledge and use of water-efficient cultivation methods among smallholders; Increased productivity of smallholder farmers targeted; Improved household nutrition through better supply and use of grain legumes that are

protein-rich. This will be particularly beneficial to women and children that have limited access to nutritious foods;

Improved household incomes – at least 30% income increase over the baseline. Strengthened extension services and farmer organizations addressing soil health

practices and approaches.

Policy program: Security of Land Rights:Specific objective addressed: To improve security of land rights to accelerate investment in sustainable soil, land and water management technologies.

The AGRA Policy program engages national governments and donors to establish an enabling environment for triggering a green revolution in Africa. A major priority for AGRA is to ensure that the Green Revolution (GR) benefits the rural poor, most especially women, and that it does not exacerbate land inequalities. Poor farmers, especially rural women who produce most of Africa’s food, need secure rights over their land if they are to have incentive to invest in the kinds of land improvements needed for a GR, such as building small scale water harvesting and irrigation infrastructure and reversing soil erosion and soil fertility loss. Control over land for women often means that such control extends to the income and benefits the land generates. Women’s poverty decreases significantly as a result. The opportunities for land rights activities in the three countries are as follows:

Malawi and Zambia: Both countries have laws/or in the process of developing laws that recognize women’s land ownership in their own right. However, implementation of laws often encounters powerful localized customary institutions that prevent women from effectively exercising their rights. The HIV/AIDS epidemic has resulted in many land rights issues regarding inheritance and the danger of families losing land they do not use10. In some cases, titling dispossesses women and orphaned youth.

In Malawi men own land and women often lose the land upon the death of their husbands. Malawi also has some matrilineal areas/systems of land tenure. In neighboring Zambia,

10 United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. 2003. Land tenure systems and sustainable development in Southern Africa.

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although most of the country’s ethnic groups are matrilineal11, widows still lose land to their husband’s relatives. Moreover, lack of awareness of their rights and inability to buy their own land restricts women’s access.

Rwanda: This country has the highest population pressure on land in Africa, exacerbated as a result of the major refugee migrations (both into and out of the country) during and after the 1994 civil war and genocide12. There is ongoing review of the laws on land, with IFAD funding. AGRA will support this review and build capacity to ensure that women are involved, particularly to ensure that tradition-based biases against women are addressed.

Issues in matrilineal communities differ markedly from those in patrilineal13 societies.

AGRA land rights activities in the three countries will include:

Promoting dialogue and advocacy towards developing and/or harmonising laws that improve women’s access to land and security of land tenure;

Supporting the implementation of progressive policies and laws to address constraints that women and youth are facing with regard to land access and security of tenure

Promote the application of tools (e.g. developed by GLTN14) that support implementation of progressive policies and laws to address constraints that women and youth are facing with regard to land access and security of tenure. This will be achieved through partnerships with NGOs, local authorities and grassroots community based organizations.

Capacity building of policy analysis, advocacy and implementing agencies as well as stimulating the establishment of Policy Action Nodes15 AGRA is at an advanced stage in supporting similar nodes in Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Mali and Tanzania and they have already been successful in developing a common agenda/set of activities on land issues that will lead to positive policy changes and impacts.

Where applicable, activities will link up with the Policy program’s Africa Parliamentary Support for Agriculture (APSA) project under the auspices of the Association of European Parliamentarians with Africa (AWEPA), especially in Rwanda where APSA activities are underway

11 Matrilineality is societal system in which one belongs to one's matriline or mother's lineage, which can involve the matrilineal inheritance of property and/or titles.

12 Rural Development Institute (RDI). 2006. Women’s land rights in Rwanda: How can they be protected and strengthened as the land law is implemented? Japan International Cooperation Agency Research Institute (JICA-RI). 2009. Conflict and land tenure in Rwanda13 Patrilineality) is a system in which one belongs to one's father's lineage and generally involves the inheritance of property, names or titles through the male line as well.14 A UN-HABITAT-initiated network which works with partners on “the18 key land tools which need to be addressed in order to deal with poverty and land issues at the country level, across all regions” (http://www.gltn.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9&Itemid=69 )15 Policy Action Nodes are a well networked set of existing, separate institutions which are already conducting research, policy analysis, advocacy, policy development and/or implementation. Through AGRA support, these institutions are then linking and capacitated to enhance their functions, develop a common agenda for action through a set of activities along a policy impact pathway in order to better address problems/realities on the ground.

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Expected outcomes/impact:

Improved legislative and land administration systems that formulate and implement pro-women and pro-smallholder land use policies.

Increased women’s access to land by 30-50%. Improved access to credit, investment in technologies and agronomic practices, leading

to raised productivity as more smallholders gain secure tenure over their land

Farmer Organization Support Centre in Africa (FOSCA):Specific objective addressed: To build the capacity of farmer organizations to improve their ability to respond to the agriculture-related needs of their members, specifically smallholders.

AGRA’s core programs carry out their work largely/often in association with farmer groups and organizations. As much as smallholder farmers need to be organized to maximize on economies of scale to ensure access to input and output markets, partnership with strong, effective farmer organizations (FOs) is vital to enable AGRA to engage smallholder farmers to achieve the required level of capacity. Growing evidence shows the potential positive impact of producer organizations on the livelihoods of smallholder farmers. They are often critical in linking smallholders to markets; catalyzing the adoption of technologies and inputs; encouraging effective soil fertility, land, and natural resource management; and articulating and aggregating the voice of smallholder producers for engagement in policy formulation.16 For example, in a recent survey of cooperatives in Tanzania, 100% of the elected members of agriculture/fishing cooperatives and 70% of managers reported that, being a member of a cooperative raised their incomes.

However, FO membership rates in SSA are estimated at below 10% in contrast to the high participation rates in OECD countries where the link with income is strong and well documented.17 Moreover, many groups are institutionally and operationally weak, seriously limiting their potential impact on poor farmers’ lives. From a gender perspective, women’s membership and full participation is often constrained as registration requirements and operational style may systematically exclude them. For example, even though they are responsible for most agricultural production and are even the primary decision makers for 45% of rural farms in Kenya,18 women only make up 25% of the membership of Kenyan agricultural cooperatives.19 This problem is often particularly acute with larger farmer organizations.20

The Farmer Organization Support Centre in Africa (FOSCA) is a new model that will positively transform the lives and livelihoods of smallholder farmers, especially women, by strengthening the farmer organizations that serve them, and doing so in a sustainable and scalable way. FOSCA will be a lean hub of specialized staff working to match the specific technical, managerial and institutional needs of FOs with a network of accredited service providers who will deliver a range of services targeted to meet the priority needs of FOs members, especially women.

16 Evidence from AFAFO 2008b17 Develtere P., Pollet, I., and F. Wanyama (eds) (2008). Cooperating out of poverty: The renaissance of the African cooperative movement. 372pp ILO Geneva ISBN 978-92-2-120722-118 Martin, A. and V. Nelson, NRI 2008, for the BGMF Extension Strategy Team19 Develtere et al 200820 Using evidence from Wennick el al 2008; AFAFO 2008a

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FOSCA’s activities in this proposal aim to closely support the work of the Market Access, PASS and Soil Health programs by:

Conducting initial rapid needs assessments of the farmer groups the programs will work with. The assessments will include membership and representation of men and women and a range of capacity gaps;

Identifying suitable service providers to meet the capacity building needs of the FOs; Training and linking the service providers with the FOs; Compiling and collating knowledge on FOs in order to build a database that will be a

resource for policy discussions

The Support Centre is keen to target and benefit women by structuring its activities accordingly. Specifically, the Centre will promote women-friendly membership requirements for organizations and ensure that women can access training on the skills they need to participate fully at both membership and leadership levels.

As this will be the beginning of FOSCA’s operationalization, these activities will form part of the Centre’s pilot phase whose outcomes will inform further work according to its implementation plan.

Expected outcomes/impact:

FOSCA will measure its achievements against the changes observed in the farmer organizations it works with. Expected outcomes include:

Increased professionalism, and transparency and accountability of FOs to members; Improved member services that are relevant and valuable to both current and new

members; Increased proportion of women as both members and playing functional roles within

their organizations; and Improved and sustainable farmer based organizations

VII. Monitoring and EvaluationAGRA’s Monitoring and Evaluation Unit (M&E)21, provides the organization with a vibrant monitoring and evaluation system whose objectives are fourfold:

To capture the progress, success, and failures of AGRA and its partners. To inform AGRA’s management decisions, strategic planning and risk

management. To demonstrate the outcomes and impacts of AGRA and to determine

whether these have been achieved cost effectively. To provide accountability to AGRA stakeholders.

Always observing the cardinal principles of technical excellence, analytical rigor, objectivity and independence as well as working within a culture of learning and partnership, the M&E system is built on the following principles:

A robust, realistic and timely results-based monitoring system External independent evaluations

21 The unit is a relatively recent addition to AGRA: it began operating in October 2008.

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Rigorous impact evaluations to attribute and demonstrate program success or otherwise on the ground.

The M&E system involves a continuous process of assessing, learning and applying lessons learned from the various program activities. Each stage of program implementation, from planning and baseline studies to use of inputs, output generation and overall outcomes receives systematic attention. Corresponding reports to stakeholders result from these assessments. Risk monitoring is also an integral part of M&E’s work.

Monitoring and evaluation of this program will employ the following methodologies:

Development of Indicators: the program has developed indicators that will be used to measure success (see Table 4 above). A detailed system of collecting data on the indicators will be developed including information requirements, frequency of data collection, responsibilities on data collection, data analysis and reporting.

Baseline Studies: AGRA is currently collecting baseline information on its broad based strategy. The Program will use this baseline data. In addition, each grantee is required to obtain baseline data specific to each project, mainly on the missing information in the current baseline.

Farm Surveys: data about smallholder changes in incomes, their adoption of technologies and their opinion (e.g. on the initiatives being offered to them) will come from a specially designed and commissioned survey.

Secondary and Aggregate Data Collection: this instrument is a catchall for a number of different tasks that will be undertaken to collect data for a wide range of indicators. These tasks will include assembling and interpreting data for a given indicator from a diversity of sources, including conducting face to face and telephone interviews to solicit information from relevant institutions.

Special Studies: special studies are an instrument of both monitoring and evaluation. They will play an important role in supplementing and deepening the findings from the farm surveys and enriching impact evaluations by providing in depth investigation and analysis of selected topics. They will involve supplementary household studies or other forms of enquiry and use participatory forms of enquiry.

Impact Evaluations: these evaluations will be used to establish the extent to which program interventions have expanded agricultural outputs, reduced rural hunger, grown rural jobs and raised rural incomes.

Reporting: The M & E system plans to report to program management on all indicators at least annually and to produce quarterly input/output monitoring reports structured according to program objectives/outcomes. These quarterly reports will also include data on outcomes as soon as it becomes available.

Audit – AGRA carries out rigorous internal and external audit processes for both financial and program systems on a regular basis.

A detailed M&E logical framework reflecting the objectives, activities, outcomes, indicators and assumptions and risks is included in the Appendix.

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VIII. BudgetAGRA requests a total of US$ 8 million to support the investments outlined in this proposal over a two-year period in Malawi, Rwanda and Zambia. This amount is distributed in the following way:

Summary Budget (all programs)Activity area Amount (US $)Market Access 3,333,332PASS 1,666,667Soil Health 416,667Policy: Land rights 833,333FOSCA 416,667M%E (5% of total Cost) 333,334Program Operation s (15% of total budget) 1,000,000TOTAL 8, 000,000

Detailed Budget:The following tables provide details on the budgetary allocations for each program's activities within this project.

Market Access ($4 million)# Market Access activity Malawi Rwanda Zambia Total

1 Provide market linkage support to farmers involved in the SHP’s integrated soil fertility management (ISFM) activities which involve increased production of legumes.

150,000 140,000 143,333 433,333

2 Provide producers with localized storage facilities

250,000 200,000 300,000 750,000

3 Build capacity in farmer organizations to progress their marketing activities

300,000 200,000 265,000 765,000

4 Help smallholders to participate in a more transparent price discovery mechanism by aggregating their produce, ensuring access to storage and training to meet quality standards

100,000 100,000 100,000 300,000

5 Improved trading mechanism by building capacity of warehouse receipting system and commodity exchange

200,000 150,000 200,000 550,000

6 Link smallholder farmers to non-food users of their produce

300,000 300,000

7 Support stakeholder convening’s towards regional grain grades and standards, expected to take place from January 2011

20,000 20,000 20,000 60,000

8 Provide capacity building support to the Women in Agribusiness in Sub-Saharan Africa Alliance

75,000 50,000 50,000 175,000

M&E (5% of program budget 69,750 43,000 53,917 166,667

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Program Operations (15% of program budget)

209,250 129,000 161,750 500,000

Total 1,674,000 1,032,000 1,294,000 4,000,000

PASS ($2 million)# PASS activity Malawi Rwanda Zambia Total

1 Development of seed enterprises to ensure multiplication and distribution of certified seed and improved planting material

330,000 440,000 220,000 990,000

2 Recruitment and development of agro-dealers with special targeting of women active in rural SMEs for agro-dealerships

350,000 0 326,667 676,667

M&E (5% of program budget) 34,000 22,000 27,333 83,333

Program Operations (15% of program budget)

102,000 66,000 82,000 250,000

Total per Country 816,000 528,000 656,000 2,000,000

Soil Health ($500,000)# Soil Health activity Malawi Rwanda Zambia Total 1 Extend integrated soil fertility

management (ISFM) systems to support full-scale solutions: support large-scale promotion of micro-dosing, cereal-legume intercropping, and cereal-legume rotations in locations where they seem to be especially promising.

45,000 45,000 45,000

135,000

2 Train farmer organizations and extension staff on good agronomic practices and conservation agriculture that has both production and environmental benefits

60,000 41,667 60,000

161,667

3 Promote in-field water management practices that will help poor farmers cope with wide swings in rainfall

60,000 0 60,000120,000

M&E (5% of program budget) 8,250 13,000 8,250 29,500

Program Operations (15% of program budget)

24,750 13,000 24,750 62,500

Total 198,000 112,667 198,000 500,000

Land Rights: $1 million

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# Land Rights Activities Malawi Rwanda Zambia total 1 Promote dialogue and advocacy towards

harmonising laws that affect women’s access to land (Malawi Zambia)

120,000 130,000 250,000

2 Support the implementation of laws that promote smallholder and rural women’s access to land (Malawi, Rwanda, Zambia)

60,000 33,333 50,000 143,333

Promote the application of tools that address constraints that women and youth are facing with regard to land access and security of tenure (all countries)

70,000 50,000 70,000 190,000

Capacity building for implementing and advocacy agencies as well as stimulating policy action node types of activities.

250,000.00 250,000

M&E (5% of program budget) 12,500 16,666.65 12,500 41,667

Program operations (15% of program budget) 37,500 49,999.95 37,500 125,000

Total per Country 300,000 400,000 300,000 1,000,000

FOSCA ($500,000)# FOSCA activity Malawi Rwanda Zambia Total 1 Conduct initial rapid needs assessments of

the farmer groups the programs will work with. The assessments will include membership and representation of men and women and a range of capacity gaps FO with a strong women membership, and working with the Market access Program will be initially targeted for greater alignment and components

40,000 24,000 24,000 88,000

2 Identify suitable service providers to meet the capacity building needs of the FOs AGRA will build on the result of FOSCA’s interventions in P1 countries;It will partner with and build on the work of other Initiatives already investing in a network of SPs

32,000 16,000 16,000 64,000

3 Train and link the service providers with the FOsAGRA will build on the result of FOSCA’s interventions in P1 countries;A priority will be given to FOs with suitable outlook and already engaged in the other program activities (Market Access)It will partner with and build on the work of other Initiatives already investing in a network of SPs

72,666 48,000 48,000 168,666

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# FOSCA activity Malawi Rwanda Zambia Total To leverage additional resources in each country, based on the results of the pilot program

4 Compile and collate knowledge on FOs in order to build a database that will be a resource for policy discussions This activity represents a key selling point of program and its results should help leverage additional resources for the other componentsIt will partner with and build on the work of other Initiatives already investing in a network of SPs

32,000 32,000 32,000 96,000

5 M&E (5% of program budget) 8,834 6,000 6,000 20,834

6 Program operations (15% of program budget)

26,500 18,000 18,000 62,500

7 TOTAL 212,000 144,000 144,000 500,000

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