Oikocredit agricultural partner, Union communale des Producteurs d’Ananas d’Alladal, Benin, Africa(UPCA-A). Photo: Nicolas Villaume
Smallholder farmers – once considered as unimportant and inefficient by experts – are now being heralded as the key to increasing world food production while limiting the impact on land, water and the global climate, says Oikocredit, a Body in Association of CTBI.
One prerequisite for this to happen, though, is that these farmers need the finance necessary to improve productivity.
‘The gap between the financial needs of smallholders and the supply of financial services is anticipated to remain significant’, according to a report last year from the Initiative for Smallholder Finance and the MasterCard Foundation.
‘It’s time for socially responsible investors and the institutions they support to get behind this great opportunity of small-scale agriculture. The income of local communities, the food security of millions of people and the well-being of the Earth’s environment and climate depend on it’, says Oikocredit.
Read more about how investment in smallholder farmers is the key to reducing poverty and feeding the world in Oikocredit’s December case study.
