Resilience grant to help smallholder farmers weather the impact of COVID-19
(Programme concluded and no longer supported by the Trafigura Foundation)
Agricultural entrepreneurs are frontline workers who need to be supported and protected by the consequences of the COVID-19 crisis. Food security and livelihoods are dependent on the capacity of local producers and farmers to respond to shocks and unexpected circumstances like those generated by the pandemic.
This is particularly important in low and middle-income countries, where smallholder farmers and agricultural cooperatives need an extra boost to take informed decisions in the face of uncertainty, adapt to new ways of working in the face of COVID-19 and preserve thousands of livelihoods for their employees.
Our long-standing partner Root Capital will provide targeted advisory services to 25 agricultural enterprises across Central America, Mexico, Colombia and Indonesia to help them stabilise their business operations as the COVID-19 challenges endure. It will also provide small, targeted grants to individual cooperatives in need.
The proposed advisory services, which will benefit circa 15,000 smallholder producers, include crisis management support, climate resilience adaptation planning, health and safety protocol development, cost and pricing strategy development, and digital business intelligence training.
Overall, these services aims at building the resilience of agricultural enterprises representing smallholder farmers, so that they remain a reliable source of prosperity for their communities.
In 2021, Root Capital’s support allowed two honey cooperatives in Mexico to serve as humanitarian aid platforms for their communities, benefiting a total of 328 honey producers and employees. For example, Proadech, based in Chiapas, used the COVID-19 Resilience Grant to preserve the income of 38 honey producers, distribute 400 kits of PPE and sanitation material, and cover the costs of renewing their organic honey certification.
Visit website
