Access to credit frees Haitian farmers to sell and invest on their own terms. As part of the Haiti Hope Project, TechnoServe and its partners have launched a pilot loan program for farmers who have difficulty accessing credit in Haiti.
Smallholder farmers in the developing world face considerable challenges that keep many of them locked in poverty. Mobile technologies have the potential to transform the rural economy facing impoverished small farmers.
Sam Koole, chairman of the Kainja Mango Farmers Association, remembers a time only a few years ago when the fruit from the Sena, a variety of mango native to eastern Uganda, was left to rot on the ground. Since launching Project Nurture in 2010, local farmers are no longer taking the Sena for granted.
TechnoServe works to help farmers in San Martin, Peru increase productivity and improve the quality of their crops, promote value-added processes such as organic certification and foster related entrepreneurship and small business growth.
Joska Aweko’s life has been indelibly affected by conflict in northern Uganda. But peace has returned in recent years, and with it, the opportunity to rebuild.
For farmers like Samuel Baale, chairman of Bulongo Farmer Business Group in eastern Uganda, cotton is vital to life. The area’s main cash crop, cotton helps pay for homes, provide food and send children to school. And the market for Samuel’s cotton comes from one major buyer: Mutuma Commercial Agencies…
Dayana Miranda, left, and her team at Floare sustainably collect, cultivate, reproduce and market orchids. Ecuador has some of the highest levels of biodiversity in the world, with a vast array of plant life that includes more than 4,000 orchid species. Yet in recent years, deforestation caused by large-scale…
Even in the poorest of countries, business opportunities exist. People have demand for goods and services, and they have the potential to supply them. All too often, though, markets in these countries fail.
In the winter of 2012, I joined TechnoServe directly from a management consulting position in San Francisco. Four months and more than 100 stakeholder interviews later, what was once a side note on a scope of work now has great impact on how TechnoServe looks at dairy interventions.
Believe it or not, it has been more than two months since I arrived in Maputo.
