2019 Annual Report

More than a decade ago, CNFA revolutionized international agricultural development with the creation of the Farm Service Center (FSC) model, a blueprint for creating one-stop rural shops that provide farmers with access to inputs, services, mechanization and information.

This groundbreaking approach to improving smallholder incomes and livelihoods by harnessing the power of the private sector has spread from a single FSC in Moldova over ten years ago, to almost 200 stores across three continents at the end of 2019.

Over the past year, CNFA has expanded the FSC model with plans to launch 21 FSCs in three new countries, including seven in Rwanda funded through the Feed the Future Hinga Weze Activity; eight in Egypt funded through the Feed the Future Egypt Food Security and Agribusiness Support; and six in Côte d’Ivoire funded through USDA’s Maximizing Opportunities in Cocoa Activity (MOCA) and in collaboration with GIZ, Germany.

Like the first FSC developed in Moldova, each new FSC has been closely adapted to fit the specific needs of each region and country in which it was established. Using CNFA’s time-tested approach, new FSCs are designed to drive long-term success, unlike many other input supply business models.

To further enhance the success of this unique model, CNFA in 2019 launched a new “Last Mile Retailer” assessment tool designed to measure the professionalism of agro-input retailers like FSCs. The tool was created in collaboration with SCOPEinsight, the International Finance Corporation, Bayer and Syngenta. More information on the Last Mile Retailer tool can be found here.

CNFA seeks to build resilience among smallholder communities by using the program elements of each project not only to produce agricultural benefits—but also to improve or create other community assets that support resilient societies, such as healthcare, education and government services.

Across the Sahel in Niger and Burkina Faso, for example, the USAID Resilience and Economic Growth in the Sahel–Accelerated Growth (REGIS-AG) program developed 25 livestock market management committees to help communities tap into the organizational power of the livestock markets that serve as critical commercial hubs where producers, traders, buyers and sellers trade livestock, feed and other goods.

With support from REGIS-AG, these committees—consisting of transporters, traders of cattle and small ruminants, and vendors—now help municipalities manage important market services such as tax collection, infrastructure maintenance, sanitation and market security.

As a result of these efforts, these committees also have contributed to community revenues and improved the local governments’ capacity to extend investments outside of the local market. In the Guidan Roumdji village in the Maradi region of Niger, for example, the increase in tax revenues collected as a result of the committee provided the local government with an extra $7M+ FCFA to contribute to major investments in the community. In another three markets across Niger, collected tax revenue increased more than 135%. Moreover, many municipalities like Guidan Roumdji now have gained the ability to offer social services to the wider community. This includes healthcare clinics and educational facilities—services that often are limited for the countries’ rural populations.

Knowledge is perhaps the most valuable commodity that changes hands in agriculture. With that in mind, CNFA arranged a tour of state-of-the-art crop production and processing facilities in California and Washington State attended by top agricultural experts from Georgia and the U.S. through the USAID Agriculture Program.

The seven-day tour organized in the Fall of 2019—which built on the success of two earlier CNFA-facilitated scientific missions to Georgia—provided Georgian participants with a close-up look at advanced U.S. agricultural practices and techniques for improved production, processing, packaging and pest management of high-value-chain crops.

The tour visited the Field Fresh Produce processing plant, the California Giant Berry Farms packing house, Driscoll’s strawberry greenhouses, and Tanimura & Antle Inc. vegetable production and processing facilities. Other stops on the tour included almond, walnut, pistachio and mandarin orchards, and table grape vineyards in the San Joaquin and Salinas Valleys—as well as apple growing, packing, storage and shipping operations in Washington State. The tour organizers later identified opportunities for further collaboration.

CNFA’s private-sector-driven approach to development also strives to cultivate and establish new linkages among all the actors within the operational reach of each project.

In Nigeria, CNFA’s USAID-funded Feed the Future Nigeria Agribusiness Investment Activity signed 86 memorandums of understanding (MoUs) aimed at strengthening the enabling environment for agribusiness finance and investment in the country.

These MoUs—which comprise agribusiness enterprises, financial institutions, investment firms, farmer associations, state governments, private-sector organizations and others—sustainably link thousands of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises and producer organizations to high-performing commercial actors in the rice, maize, soybean, aquaculture and cowpea value chains.

MoUs were also signed with the Nigerian National Accreditation Services, the Nigerian Economic Summit Group, and the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission to leverage resources and address product-quality standards and investment constraints within Nigeria’s agribusiness sector.

These MoUs facilitated through CNFA’s efforts will help to support innovative funding approaches that expand access to capital, address legal and regulatory bottlenecks, and make possible increased lending to the agriculture sector.

CNFA’s innovative approach to agricultural development requires constant surveillance of the technology landscape in order to bring the best new solutions to bear. In 2019, this was demonstrated in Pakistan through our USAID-funded Pakistan Agricultural Technology Transfer Activity (PATTA).

Emphasizing the practice of continuous investigation, PATTA collaborated with research institutes and private-sector companies to develop innovative solutions designed to respond to the specific needs of Pakistani smallholders. For example, PATTA supported Soby Ag. Engineers in its efforts to design, re-engineer and manufacture mini tractors with reaper binders—machine attachments specially designed to harvest wheat, rice, sorghum, and other crops. This local innovation which features a narrow, compact build and low power can be used by smallholder farmers for a range of applications including crop care and land preparation.

PATTA identified and promoted more than 1,000 unique agricultural technologies, out of which 161 were commercialized in the project’s targeted provinces. Another 37 were introduced from the United States. Overall, 43,677 farmers applied new technologies and practices, resulting in technology sales worth more than $10 million and farm produce sales of more than $5 million.

Perhaps the most basic goal within CNFA’s broader mission is to enhance the health of our beneficiaries through improved nutrition—and we managed to break new ground in doing so over the past year in Rwanda through the USAID-funded Feed the Future Hinga Weze Activity.

The program—which sought to improve the nutrition of vulnerable Rwandan households by increasing animal-sourced protein consumption, and by encouraging a more diverse diet—piloted a novel livestock distribution program in collaboration with the Rwandan poultry company, Uzima Chicken.

During Phase 1 of program in early 2019, Hinga Weze distributed 21,600 chickens to 3,600 households. Beneficiaries consumed 51 percent of the eggs produced and used the income from the sale of eggs and chicken to buy nutritious foods such as fruits and vegetables. Moreover, they also used the income to buy fertilizers, seeds and feed—as well as to pay for other things that reinforced their health and wellbeing such as community health insurance, scholastic materials for children, and household items to support healthy sanitation and hygiene.

Based on this success, later in 2019, Hinga Weze scaled up the program to include an inventive Phase 2 under which the project trained 139 agents across 10 target districts to distribute 91,000 chickens to 14,400 households and 23 care groups.

The pilot was an unqualified success. The new consumption of protein, among other factors, contributed to an increase in the percentage of women of reproductive age who consumed a minimally diverse diet—boosting that percentage in 2019 from the planned annual target of 19.0 percent to 20.8 percent.

Amalima Stories from Gwanda

Amalima Stories from Bulilima

Amalima Stories from Tsholotsho

Total Revenue – $55,041,862

• Federal & Non-Federal Grant Income – $54,313,149
• Other Income – $221,059
• In-Kind Contributions – $507,654

Total Expenses – $54,755,212

• Net Assets, Beginning of the Year – $4,573,511
• Net Assets, End of the Year – $4,860,161