"Partnering for Innovation: The Podcast" Explores Direct Partnerships With the Private Sector for Food Security
Feed the Future Partnering for Innovation is excited to announce the launch of our new podcast, “Partnering for Innovation: The Podcast”, exploring how a donor-funded development program is working with the private sector to make agricultural innovations profitable in smallholder markets!
Smallholder farmers all over the world work hard to make money and feed their families. However, many of those farmers don’t have access to improved inputs, better ways to grow their crops, finance that suits the agricultural cycle, better ways to store their harvested goods or reliable markets that would transform farming from a mere means of survival into a profitable business. Agricultural companies have the products that smallholder farmers need to make farming into a profitable business. In turn, smallholder farmers represent a massive potential market for these companies. How can donors like USAID help bring farmers and companies together in a way that benefits everyone?
Partnering for Innovation’s new podcast, titled “Partnering for Innovation: The Podcast,” uses examples from the program’s five-plus years of experience at the intersection of responsible business and agricultural development to demonstrate solutions to the challenges businesses and farmers face to selling and using cutting-edge farming technologies, products and services that improve productivity and thus farmer livelihoods. It shows how donors like USAID can partner with the private sector to build sustainable, long-term access to farming innovations and markets, and make agriculture profitable for farmers and businesses.
The first two episodes, now available, look at how companies in Guatemala and Malawi are incorporating smallholder farmers into their operations through youth programs and outgrower schemes, and by developing and selling smallholder-friendly products.
Working in smallholder markets is good for both companies and farmers, and donors like USAID can play a critical role in making this happen effectively, efficiently and profitably. Listen to “Partnering for Innovation: The Podcast” and spread the word about this new podcast!