Project profile — Farmers’ Knowledge - COVID-19

This project supports activities aimed at responding to the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) in Senegal and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This project helps small agricultural entrepreneurs (SEA), including women and young people, to sustainably increase and diversify their food production and the profitability of their farms. This project strengthens the capacities of SEAs to adopt sustainable, profitable agricultural practices, promoting diversification and increased production. The COVID-19 pandemic is causing a decrease in the daily income (purchasing power) of consumers, lower prices in markets, and reduced cash flow for processors and producers. There are difficulties in obtaining seeds and other necessary inputs in agricultural value chains. This threatens the production of farmers. In addition, restaurant closings and reduced purchases in the various markets led to a reduce demand for fresh products, thus reducing the anticipated income of producers and suppliers. Women groups which transform agricultural products into food are thus caught between a difficulty of access to the raw products and the possibility of finding customers for their processed products.

The expected results of this project include: In Senegal: (1) support for smallholder farmers' organizations in the purchase of grouped goods and services for the benefit of producers; (2) provision of funds for the purchase of end-of-season rice and groundnut stocks; (3) support for processing units of beneficiary women's groups on storage techniques, management in times of crisis, purchase of small equipment and supply of raw materials for processing; (4) redistribution of part of the processed products to organizations working with vulnerable populations (e.g. orphanages). In the Democratic Republic of the Congo: (5) support to food production by providing the scaling up of collective vegetable production plots already in place. These activities should reach 13,723 direct beneficiaries (including 6,175 women) and 41,169 indirect beneficiaries (including 21,778 women).

The results obtained up to June 2021 include: (1) 1,019 small agricultural entrepreneurs (including 454 women and 575 young people) received production support, including inputs and funding to scale up vegetable gardens; (2) 1,063 women received processing support, including access to raw products, management support, and purchase of processing equipment; (3) 2,629 vulnerable people (including 91 women, 147 young people and 132 12-year-old children) received part of the processed production free of charge.