Client: Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation
Duration: 2010-2021
Region: Sub-Saharan Africa
Country: Mozambique
Solutions: Economic Growth
Small farms have traditionally dominated agricultural production in northern Mozambique, providing primarily subsistence output and offering limited commercial opportunities. More than 80 percent of the economically active population is engaged in subsistence agriculture, with very low levels of production, productivity, and income.
Using a market systems development (MSD) approach, the Innovation for Agribusiness (InovAgro)) project—funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation—for more than a decade worked to increase incomes and economic security among subsistence smallholders in Northern Mozambique, with an emphasis on improving agricultural productivity and enhancing connections to market systems in select, high-potential value chains: maize, soya beans, groundnuts, sesame, and pigeon peas.
Playing a catalytic role that brings market actors together to advance mutually beneficial relationships, InovAgro strengthened crosscutting market systems and helped farmers access better information and certified seeds, steadily increasing their productivity. It worked with seed and other agricultural input companies to spur demand for their products among farmers, while seeking to enhance the regulatory framework and supporting environment in the seed and input sector.
InovAgro’s distinctive MSD approach delivered tangible results. In an impact assessment of the program published in 2021, the International Food Policy Research Institute concluded that its interventions “increase farmers’ use of yield-enhancing agricultural inputs” and that InovAgro’s approach “has more sustainable impact than non-MSD programs.”
InovAgro II supported four villages with 17,000 residents to demarcate community boundaries and worked with seed companies to respond to increased demands for inputs stimulated by the new secure land tenure.
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