By David Hong, Global Senior Policy Analyst, One Acre Fund
 
While the growth of cities has been well documented, it might come as a surprise to find out that Africa’s rural population will grow nearly 50 percent between 2015 and 2050. To address rural poverty in Africa and strengthen our food systems, it’s important to focus on helping smallholder farmers increase production and gain access to domestic markets. Many of these domestic markets—which represent real economic opportunity for smallholder farmers—will supply urban consumers.
 
Smallholder farmers are absolutely central to ending rural poverty. In fact, 75 percent of people living in poverty rely on agriculture as their primary means of income, and studies have shown that growth in the agriculture sector is at least twice as powerful in reducing poverty as growth in other sectors. In many places, smallholder farmers are the engine of the rural economy—in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, they grow up to 80 percent of the food consumed, and some estimates peg the number of smallholder farms at 500 million worldwide. However, smallholder yields are low and have barely budged in decades. Many smallholder farmers in Africa are only producing a fraction of their crop’s genetic yield potential, which farmers in the United States and Argentina achieve every year.
 
If we want to drive down rural poverty and increase production to meet the demands of growing rural and urban populations, we need to invest in boosting smallholder farmer productivity. We already have the tools and technologies to dramatically increase yields and ensure the food security of hundreds of millions of families. But smallholder farmers living in remote areas lack access to these tools and technologies. To increase their yields, smallholders need access to basic products and services, specifically 1) financing for farm inputs, 2) training, 3) distribution, and 4) access to markets. Once these are in place, farmers are not only able to feed their own families, they are also able to grow enough to feed their surrounding communities.
 
First, smallholder farmers need access to flexible and innovative tools to finance the cost of farm inputs and productive assets. Many farmers have difficulty coming up with the upfront capital required to buy fertilizer or livestock, yet have the ability to make incremental payments over time. Juhudi Kilimo offers Kenyan farmers financing designed to help them buy productive assets such as dairy cows. Nearly half of the organization’s total loan portfolio is for dairy cows, which have the potential to increase household income by $600 per year. In Mali, myAgro allows farmers to use their mobile phones to pay for seed and fertilizer on layaway.
 
Second, many smallholder farmers lack basic information about agricultural best practices, and need training to maximize the benefits of improved technologies such as hybrid seed. In Rwanda, the Ministry of Agriculture has developed an effective extension system that provides each village with a “farmer promoter” – a volunteer who is trained in basic agronomy to provide agriculture information and advice to local farmers. There are now over 14,000 farmer promoters delivering life-changing tools and trainings to every village in all corners of the country.
 
Third, most smallholders live in remote rural areas that are underserved by traditional markets. “Agrodealers” or other rural retailers may find it unprofitable to set up businesses in these remote areas, thus cutting farmers off from access to productive technologies. Each year in East Africa, One Acre Fund hires a fleet of trucks to deliver seed and fertilizer, solar lamps, cookstoves, and other impactful products deep into rural areas where farmers live.
 
Fourth, farmers need output markets to buy their harvests and to ensure a return on their investment. While there are many examples of contract farming and off-take agreements at a small scale, few initiatives are as ambitious as the World Food Program’s Patient Procurement Platform. The Patient Procurement Platform is an initiative designed to connect smallholder farmers to commercial buyers at scale. Together with the private sector, the World Food Program is aiming to purchase $750 million of crops from 1.5 million smallholder farmers by the end of this year.
 
All of these examples showcase the ability to transform the agriculture sector and the lives of smallholder farmers. Relative to the overall need, however, the farmers being served only represent a drop in the bucket. There are literally hundreds of millions of smallholder farmers who, with the right interventions, could boost their productivity and contribute to their country’s food systems. To address this need, we’ll need the help of governments, donors, and private sector actors to invest in and partner with innovative organizations that are operating at scale. A strong food system is supported by productive farmers; when farmers thrive, hunger declines. That’s a win-win for the farm and the city.