Category: Case Studies

Multi-skilled agents in Zambia, digitised by Smallholdr, deliver health and nutrition products, collect socio-economic data and provide a market for beans to ‘last-mile’ communities. A partnership between a beans processing company, Mushili, and a social enterprise, Live Well, has led to an innovative deployment of Smallholdr to efficiently deliver business and social information. The link …

Imagine the challenge of managing 120 field staff working with 22,000 farmers across a whole country… We are delighted that Caitlin Shaw, Manager of Meridian’s Farm Services Unit (FSU) in Malawi, has written us a guest blog this month to explain how Smallholdr has done exactly that, capturing rich records of all farmer interactions and …

Knowing the exact origins of food – and other products – is becoming a hygiene factor rather than a novelty among many consumers now there is an increased awareness about a whole range of factors when selecting brands. Was a fair price paid to the small farmers for their avocados? Is a particular Ethiopian coffee …

Seed multiplication by smallholder farmers is the core business model of Good Nature Agro (GNA), a Zambian seed company based in Chipata near the western border of the country. It therefore follows that provision of hands-on extension is a vital part of the company’s business; multiplying certified seed requires a very specific set of farming …

Central to the challenges of food security and poverty alleviation in Sub-Saharan Africa is the need to increase the productivity of smallholder farmers. Access to better inputs and agronomic advice via extension services is therefore vital. A Malawian agri-retailer is rising to these challenges by customising fertiliser blends for smallholders, using extension as a marketing …