Facilitating linkages between private sector and smallholder farmers resulting in increased incomes and sustainable sector investments.
We provide financial and technical support to governments as they strive to increase income and improve food security for smallholder farmers. We understand the competing priorities faced by governments with limited resources and capacity. Our aim is to help governments marshal their agriculture sectors and the key players within them.
In our work on partnership development, we aim to create stronger alignment between different actors within the stakeholder landscape. This involves aligning government priorities and private sector interest, but also creating synergies among value chain actors in order to increase our impact. Our efforts are designed to improve the integration and coordination of investments and mobilize private sector support for local farmers, agribusinesses and public sector institutions.
In recent years, we have taken a holistic approach to our partnership work; one which considers the investment needs of the entire food and agriculture system. Building bigger, more strategic relationships across the value chain, this approach enables us to avoid low-impact, piecemeal solutions and unite a range of stakeholders towards a common goal. From consortia in the field through to large agribusinesses, we aim to leverage the expertise and influence of partners to help deliver lasting benefits to smallholder farmers. As such, we are also strengthening AGRA’s position as the go-to broker for transformative partnerships in African agriculture.
In our formulation of partnerships, we prioritize partners in line with AGRA’s overall strategic objectives. We base our assessments and decisions on five critical outcomes that align with our ambition to impact 30 million smallholder farmers.
These outcomes are:
Scale: increase farmer reach
Transformation: increase farmer income
Synergies: accelerate delivery towards our targets
Leverage: unlock additional resources from public and private actors
Systems development: achieve sustainable and widespread impact by ensuring strong engagement from the private sector
Our partners
We now has a strong network of strategic partners pursuing co-investment opportunities across our portfolio. Combined, our relationships are enabling us to provide a range of catalytic opportunities to around 3,600 private sector partners across our 11 focus countries. These include over 3,300 SMEs in various parts of the agriculture value chain, and 300 leading agribusinesses and service providers.
Building on our local partnerships, we have initiated conversations with 93 prominent companies/institutions, identifying 123 initial partnership opportunities at different stages of development across our 11 countries. So far, we have prioritized 30 top global and regional agribusinesses with whom to deepen our engagements. These include input companies, such as SeedCo, Yara and UPL and Corteva, as well as mechanization firms such as John Deere and Mahindra; Agtech and financial services providers such as IBM and Rabobank; and large buyers and traders such as Nestlé, Africa Improved Foods and Olam.
We are also building and strengthening relationships with multilateral technical partners and platforms to leverage investment and technical expertise. These include research institutions such as the China Academy of Agriculture Science and the African Seed Trade Association; specialists such as Mercy Corps; development partners such as World Bank, IFAD, WFP and UNEP; and investment funds and private foundations such as Mastercard Foundation, Syngenta Foundation and the Ikea Foundation.
AGRA has also expanded its ecosystem partnerships. We have developed a strategy to help guide our China-Africa collaboration, built new partnerships with the Israeli Start-up Nation ecosystem, and participated in the Farm to Market Alliance (FTMA). In addition, through our inclusive finance team we have established partnerships with a range of national champions, investors, funds and financial institutions.