A partnership with The Coca-Cola Company and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Project Nurture aims to help more... than 50,000 small-scale mango and passion fruit farmers in Kenya and Uganda double their fruit incomes. In addition to identifying new market opportunities, TechnoServe advisors are working with farmers to improve productivity and develop strong farmer business groups.

Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and implemented in partnership with Heifer International, East Africa... Dairy Development (EADD) aims to double the dairy incomes of 179,000 smallholder farm families in Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda. The program facilitates improved dairy production, business practices and market access by developing chilling plant hubs.

Much of northern Uganda can be defined as a post-conflict environment, scarred by the activities of the Lord’s... Resistance Army. Civilians who had fled to government-run camps have now returned to their farms to rebuild their livelihoods. TechnoServe is working in Lamwo District, bordering South Sudan, to address various post-conflict challenges. Under the Revitalizing Agricultural Incomes and New Markets (RAIN) program, TechnoServe is striving to stimulate the redevelopment of input and output markets for seven local staple crops: cassava, simsim, sorghum, beans, rice, groundnuts and maize.

Cotton thrives in many parts of Uganda, and the industry has great potential to lift smallholder farmers out of... poverty. However the vast majority of cotton farmers remain poor. With support from luxury clothing brand Edun, we are currently working with 8,500 cotton farmers in northern Uganda where farms had been abandoned as a result of Lord’s Resistance Army attacks. The Conservation Cotton Initiative aims to improve farmers’ incomes and livelihoods by encouraging adoption of improved production, post-harvest and storage practices, and improving access to better markets. CCI also strives to improve production of staple crops such as groundnuts, maize and beans. A social component is being implemented in partnership with Invisible Children. TechnoServe previously worked with 13,500 cotton farmers and two processors in Eastern Uganda to improve both production and market opportunities.

TechnoServe is supporting the grain and cereals value chain in northern Uganda through our work with World Food... Programme (WFP) collection centers. WFP centers have great potential to improve the grain and cereal marketing infrastructure in this post-conflict environment; however, they are currently being utilized at only 10 to 20 percent capacity. TechnoServe has developed business plans to improve the operations of ten satellite collection centers, and will be working on business plans for the remaining 23 satellite collection sites. We are also helping to structure the operations of WFP’s six 2,000-metric-ton-capacity market collection centers.

Women Mean Business (WMB) supports women entrepreneurs to grow their businesses, compete more effectively, and increase... women’s incomes. In the Kampala area, 55 percent of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are owned or managed by women; however many lack management skills and face high competition. The program provides training, coaching and mentoring to women entrepreneurs to build their skills, improve their confidence and grow their support networks. With 588 graduates completing Phase I of the program between 2009 and 2011, TechnoServe is now working with 468 women through WMB Phase II. Phase II also involves a pioneering study component to evaluate the impact and cost effectiveness of two approaches: “light touch” (classroom training) and “in-depth” (classroom training plus coaching and mentoring).

More than 35 percent of Uganda’s cultivated land is dedicated to banana production, and there is a large domestic... market for matooke bananas. In 2005, TechnoServe started working with smallholder matooke farmers to address value chain inefficiencies and market failures. Interventions through our most recent phase (2008-2011) included training over 16,000 farmers in business and production best practices, initiating and coaching 35 farmer associations, linking farmers to buyers and service providers, and helping banana farmers increase their resilience by diversifying into dairy. Farmers earned $24.9 million from sales of matooke and milk during the project period.

Uganda is climatically well positioned to be a major producer of tropical fruits such as pineapple. Nevertheless,... inefficiencies in the supply chain mean that domestic markets are not fully leveraged and regional trade remains low. During a two-year intervention in the pineapple value chain, TechnoServe worked with 3,000 smallholder farmers to improve the productivity and profitability of their businesses and identify new market opportunities. Average revenues per acre increased by 108 percent in Luwero and 72 percent in Kayunga during the project period. Our work with two fruit processing buyers resulted in an average revenue growth of 37 percent, though accessing finance to expand production remains a challenge.