Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture
Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture
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Our Mission To stimulate economic growth and improve livelihoods by cultivating entrepreneurship
Our Story Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture (CNFA), a non-profit international development organization with offices in Washington, D.C. and a European branch, CNFA Europe, based in Brussels, Belgium, specializes in designing and implementing sustainable, market-led agricultural, agribusiness and livestock initiatives. We work with businesses, farmers’ groups, governments and communities to build customized local and global partnerships that meet the world’s growing demand for food. By incorporating innovative approaches into our programs and fostering inclusive development to offer enhanced opportunities to underserved groups, we create positive changes in the lives of smallholder farmers and rural entrepreneurs. Since our inception 1985, CNFA has managed more than $600 million in agricultural development programs across 44 countries worldwide in Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East, and South and Central Asia.
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Our Culture
Our Impact
Our team is the most significant driver in pursuing CNFA’s mission. We champion entrepreneurial spirit at all levels and embrace the notion that bold development solutions can come from singular, sometimes unexpected sources. Recognizing this is inherent in our DNA. CNFA is an aggregation of talent. Our diverse organization has grown to more than 500 employees worldwide. We are not only development experts, but also experienced business owners, agronomists, agribusiness specialists and farmers. As a global team, this collective knowledge shapes and informs our work.
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13,000+ Agribusinesses with improved operations and profitability
43,000+ New jobs created as a result of CNFA support
1,590+ Associations and groups of farmers, producers, and agrodealers formed or strengthened
Our Vision A prosperous world without hunger
Latin America & the Caribbean Haiti
South and Central Asia Afghanistan Bangladesh Iraq Kazakhstan
Current program
Pakistan
Past program Headquarters
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Eastern Europe and the Caucasus
Africa
Azerbaijan
Angola
Nigeria
Belarus
Benin
Senegal
Bulgaria
Burkina Faso
Sierra Leone
Georgia
Ethiopia
Somalia
Kosovo
Egypt
Somaliland
Kyrgyzstan
Ghana
South Africa
Moldova
Guinea
South Sudan
Romania
Kenya
Sudan
Russia
Liberia
Tanzania
Tajikistan
Malawi
Togo
Ukraine
Mali
Uganda
Uzbekistan
Mozambique
Zambia
Niger
Zimbabwe
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Sustainable Agricultural Production CNFA harnesses a private sector-driven and value-chain approach to promote sustainable agricultural practices. We provide the assistance producers need to make their agricultural operations more economically viable, reaching a level of production sufficient to satisfy the food and fiber needs of their families and communities, and to market their surpluses.
Equipping Farmers in Zimbabwe to Face a Challenging Climate In Zimbabwe, our Amalima project team collaborates with the Department of Agricultural, Technical and Extension Services (AGRITEX) to promote conservation agriculture. Select farmers are trained to teach other local farmers best practices to maximize soil fertility, through use of internal and external inputs. So far, this effort has enabled more than 23,000 farmers to maintain harvests through Zimbabwe’s recent droughts. By propagating these conservation techniques and promoting drought-resistant, higher-yield small grain crops, the team has equipped farmers in the districts of Tsholotsho (Matabeleland North), Bulilima, Gwanda and Mangwe (Matabeleland South) to sustainably produce crops through future adverse conditions.
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In Zimbabwe, 23,000 farmers have applied improved soilrelated fertility and conservation techniques as a result of CNFA training through the USAID-funded Amalima Program.
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Enterprise Development We promote sustainable rural enterprise development by helping micro- and small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to drive growth, generate higher incomes, and provide new opportunities in the agribusinesses sector. By increasing private investment and commercial finance opportunities, we support enterprise growth and diversification while creating new jobs and developing safer food.
By 2021, the LADA program aims to leverage more than $9 million in private-sector investment towards MSME development and train nearly 20,000 farmers.
Private-Sector Investment Plays Key Role in Making Liberia Food-Secure In Liberia, CNFA leads a consortium of local and international partners aiming to improve smallholder farmers’ and entrepreneurs’ access to inputs and services, while facilitating their entry into new markets. Funded by USAID, the Liberia Agribusiness Development Activity employs a results-driven and sustainable approach to increase private-sector investment in the country’s agricultural input systems, as well as in post-harvest handling, transport and processing activities. The project manages a Competitive Innovation Fund (CIF), which has targeted investments in high-quality rice mills to produce export quality rice, improve cassava and animal feed millers, and capitalize a key microfinance institution serving vulnerable smallholder farmers.
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Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture
Creating New Markets and Job Opportunities for Georgian Farmers and Enterprises AromaProduct, a Georgian agribusiness buys fruits from Georgian farmers, and processes them into high-quality natural juices, jams and preserves, dried spices and other products for export to Europe, Asia and Australia. To expand AromaProduct’s business and link them to new farmers, the USAID-funded Restoring Efficiency to Agriculture Production (REAP) program, led by CNFA, co-invested in the firm to enable it to quickly launch a new packaging and labeling line, and provided technical assistance to ensure the products met international quality standards. These activities continue to help small and medium-sized farmers in Georgia become more economically viable.
Via REAP’s strategic investment, AromaProduct has hired 17 additional seasonal staff, including 10 women, and generated more than $312,200 in annual gross sales.
REAP grantee AromaProduct, a producer of high quality natural juices, jams, preserves, dried spices and other boutique products, procures raw materials such as cornel, pomegranate, cherries, and vegetables from farmers across Georgia.
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Input Supply and Farm Services Improving access to agricultural inputs and services is one of the most effective ways to boost productivity and help farmers transition from subsistence farming to more commercially-oriented agriculture. Our Farm Service Center (FSC) model provides farmers with high-quality agricultural inputs, machinery and veterinary services, marketing assistance for agricultural outputs, training, and access to credit.
Building a Reliable and Sustainable Agro-Retailers’ Network in Bangladesh CNFA established the Agro-Input Retailers’ Network (AIRN) in Bangladesh in partnership with USAID through the AgroInputs Project. The network of 3,000 agro-input retailer members, which includes over 200 women, serves as a firstof-its-kind inputs training and service provider. To increase farmer demand for quality agro-inputs, AIRN retailers undergo training on the safe and improved agronomic use of agro-inputs, oversee a code of business conduct, and work to combat the adulteration of agricultural inputs. “When I discovered the AIRN I recognized it as an opportunity to improve my business and to learn more about quality agro-inputs. Now, I encourage female entrepreneurs to become involved in the agro-inputs business because it helped me raise my family. I know how important it is for mothers to earn money for their families.” -Parvin Azis
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Parvin Azis, the first female AIRN accredited agro-inputs retailer in Bangladesh.
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Building the First Farm Service Center Network Throughout Ethiopia CNFA established the first private input supply network in Ethiopia through the USAID Commercial Farm Service Program, pioneering the introduction of commercially viable, locally-owned retail enterprises and Farm Service Centers (FSC) to serve smallholders. Under this program, CNFA established six FSCs and a member-owned “apex” organization that pools the resources, buying power and inventory needs of individual stores and independently governs the network. This ensures member FSCs are united through shared business interests, common branding, and a commitment to solving the common challenges farmers face. CNFA continues to expand this network through two programs. Under the USAID-funded Feed the Future Ethiopia Farm Service Center Project, CNFA has partnered with the Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency to establish 20 additional FSCs throughout Amhara, Oromia, SNNPR and Tigray. A second program—led by CNFA Europe and the German Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)—is building five new FSCs in the Arsi zone of Oromia under GIZ’s Green Innovation Centre for the Agriculture and Food Sector. By improving access to a wide range of supplies—including high-quality seeds, fertilizers, plant protection products, veterinary products and services— our FSC network is helping Ethiopian farmers transition from subsistence farming to more commercially-oriented production. ”Beyond shifting stereotypes, I’m grateful that I was given the chance to prove my skills through the development of my FSC. Through my business, I’ve met people who share my passion for improving our country’s food security and agriculture productive system. I’ve also connected with other female entrepreneurs who are looking to increase their families’ incomes. These women inspire me every day and demonstrate just how important gender equity is to our nation’s economic security.” - Adanech Zewdie
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Adanech Zewdie, Farm Service Center Owner.
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Market Access CNFA works to guide improvements all along the agricultural value chain, addressing the demands of processors, traders, and consumers alike. We believe that post-harvest handling practices, traceability and quality standards are essential to ensure market access at the local, national and international levels. Our facilitative approach strengthens inclusive, cohesive value chains through activities that promote self-reinforcing push-andpull market forces exerted through a reduction in risks for smallholder farmers to innovate. These are further catalyzed by improved market information, strengthened access to finance and improved inputs, and more reliable business outlets and relationships. This “push-and-pull� cycle encourages sustainable relationships between actors at the front, middle, and end segments of the value chain by supporting consistent availability of product for lead firms and other buyers, markets for input suppliers and SME service providers, and stronger SME and farmer group partners for investors and financial institutions.
Generating Awareness of Pakistani Meat, Vegetables and Fruit to Boost International Exports CNFA launched the USAID-funded U.S.-Pakistan Partnership for Agricultural Market Development to boost domestic and international sales of Pakistani agricultural products, including meat, vegetables, mangoes and citrus. In addition to improving technical capacity and production, this partnership promotes cooperation among farmers, processors, exporters, and buyers of agricultural products. Due to the project’s facilitative efforts, Indonesia
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As a result of project-support:
$10.9 million in new exports and sales contracts for Pakistani Meat, Fruit, and Vegetables
rescheduled its calendar of import quotas to be better harmonized with the Pakistani Kinnow export season. This means that local exporters can send their Kinnow produce to Indonesia throughout the January-to-April citrus season, which was impossible under the previous quota calendar. Exporters now anticipate sending around 500 container shipments of fresh Kinnow to Indonesia during the 2016-2017 season, resulting in a significant boost for Pakistan’s citrus agriculture sector.
Importers of project-supported products: UAE, Qatar, Russia, Philippines, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Canada, Malaysia, Canada, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, and Indonesia.
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Processing and Post-Harvest Management CNFA integrates processing and post-harvest handling practices in its programs to expand the profitability, competitiveness and export capacities of food processing enterprises. Incorporating these practices helps mitigate food loss, increase rural incomes and create new jobs.
Valuing Our Volunteers CNFA leverages volunteer technical assistance through the USAID Farmer-to-Farmer program to boost incomes of smallholder farmers and small and medium-sized enterprises. Our network of volunteer consultants includes experts representing a wide array of disciplines from farmers to processors to rural bankers. Volunteer assignments lasting two to four weeks focus on a range of topics. For example, volunteers train farmers’ associations on improved production techniques and post-harvest handling, or teach cooperatives about better financial management and marketing. By merging their expertise with the local knowledge of our in-country staff, CNFA volunteers engage in citizen diplomacy and provide farmers and enterprises with professional solutions that effectively match local needs.
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Since CNFA’s first volunteer program in 1991, we have deployed more than 2,700 volunteers across 21 countries. We currently send volunteers to Angola, Ethiopia, Egypt, Malawi and Mozambique. Over the past eight years, our volunteers have completed 180 assignments focused on processing and post-harvest management.
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Strengthening Livelihoods Agriculture and nutrition are inextricably linked. CNFA supports smallholder farmers to engage in new and existing markets, develop household assets, and increase their resiliency to environmental and economic shocks. Our “push-pull� strategy moves vulnerable subsistence farming households into commercially-oriented, market-led agriculture, enabling rural families to consume a higherquality diet and empowering them with increased incomes to purchase more nutrition-rich agricultural and livestock value chain commodities. To complement these efforts, CNFA facilitates the development of farmer-based organizations to unify thousands of smallholders to improve their bargaining power and ability to obtain collective services, and reduce transaction costs. Via these and other channels to rural families, CNFA applies holistic social behavior and communications strategies (SBCS) to operationalize our activities which include examples such as site cooking demonstrations, communications materials, and veterinary health campaigns. Together, these measures reduce household vulnerabilities, increase resilience to economic and environmental shocks, and improve livelihoods.
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$4 million in estimated losses avoided for poultry producers.
Bolstering Small-Scale Poultry Producers For small-scale poultry producers, Newcastle disease is a significant obstacle to resilient incomes and food security. Across the West African region, the disease kills an estimated 40-70% of unvaccinated rural poultry, with especially bad outbreaks occurring in the cold season when livelihoods are most vulnerable. In targeted agro-pastoralist and marginal agriculture zones of Niger, CNFA and our partners mobilized two vaccination campaigns using the L-2 vaccine, which is effective against Newcastle, easy to use, thermostable and not expensive (50 FCFA / bird. The two campaigns were conducted under the USAID-funded Resilience and Economic Growth in the Sahel – Accelerated Growth (REGIS-AG program, first in November 2015 in TillabÊri and again from March-April 2016 in Maradi and Zinder. The two campaigns vaccinated a total of 1,165,473 birds, equivalent to approximately $4 million in estimated losses avoided for poultry producers.
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Access to Finance CNFA improves financial access for agribusinesses and farmers first by engaging both supply-side and demandside stakeholders to help clear away obstacles to financing. We work with commercial banks, micro-finance institutions, village savings and credit groups, and policy-makers to improve their ability to design and market agricultural lending products. Parallel to these efforts, we develop and strengthen market linkages for agribusinesses and farmers, as well as provide them with targeted technical assistance to ensure that their commercial operations become or continue to be viable and able to service newly available types of financing.
Creating New Markets and Accessing Credit for Ethiopian Meat and Live Animal Exports Bereket Demeke owed more than 10 million (Ethiopian Birr) because of a drought that caused a devastating hit to his animal export business. “I was on the verge of losing everything,� Bereket said. But Bereket’s outlook changed after the USAIDfunded Agricultural Growth Program-Livestock Market Development (AGP-LMD) project, implemented by CNFA, invited him through a cost-share approach to participate in the Gulfood Trade Show in Dubai. Each year, the project
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sponsors entrepreneurs to participate in trade shows they might never attend otherwise. AGP-LMD supported Bereket at every step of the way, helping him to prepare a sales pitch and develop high-impact marketing materials for his business. Having traveled at his own expense, Bereket was determined to make a major sale, and after several days of negotiations, he finalized a contract for his first international export of 2,000 live animals. However, to fulfill this first contract, Bereket required a large investment of 16 million Ethiopian Birr to deliver on the sale. Working with AGPLMD as a facilitator, he applied to USAID’s Development Credit Authority (DCA) for a loan, which DCA ultimately approved. “That was my breakthrough,” Bereket said. “With the help of USAID and CNFA, I managed to supply the required live animals to fulfill the contract.”
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Bereket paid back the entire loan in just one year. Residents around Mojo, the community where his business center is located, have benefited significantly from his success. They produce more livestock to satisfy the demand of Bereket’s growing business, which has generated new levels of income for local families. Bereket has also offered full-time employment opportunities to several residents as his sales increased. Over the past four and a half years, AGP-LMD has facilitated more than $92.5 million in livestock exports, helping to expand Ethiopia’s meat and live animal value chains’ access to international markets. Thanks to AGPLMD interventions, the value of livestock products exported increased to $23.8 million in 2016 alone, representing approximately 25 percent of Ethiopia’s total formal livestock exports.
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Bereket talks with a potential buyer at the Gulfood trade show.
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WWW.CNFA.ORG
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