CNFA: 2019 in Review

Stimulating economic growth and improving livelihoods by cultivating entrepreneurship to promote a prosperous world without hunger.

Featured on the cover of the Annual Report, this photo of women from a bean farming cooperative in Bugesera, Rwanda highlights the agricultural and entrepreneurial spirit of our beneficiaries.

In January 2019, CNFA’s USDA-funded Maximizing Opportunities in Cocoa Activity (MOCA) presented at the Fine Chocolate Industry Association’s winter 2019 event in San Francisco on how CNFA is “elevating chocolate” in West Africa. Through our work with cooperatives, processors, and other stakeholders, MOCA is building capacities by improving access to market systems as well as building the resilience of actors along the cocoa value chain to improve cocoa quality and production, and increase incomes for smallholder farmers. Working with U.S. chocolate-makers and the Ivorian government, MOCA will initiate a quality-flavor cacao production strategy and further invest in quality-flavor cacao production and marketing.

From July 2018 — March 2019 our USAID Feed the Future Egypt Food Security and Agribusiness Support (FAS) sent 28 different SMS messages to 5,586 households focusing on key nutrition topics through the digital extension service platform (DESP). Topics ranged from improving dietary diversity, malnutrition, and food safety to enhancing water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) practices. CNFA recognizes that agricultural development and nutrition are intimately interconnected, and presents opportunities for households to improve their access to healthy food systems by educating communities on nutritious and diverse diets, improving incomes and decision-making power for women, and helping communities’ access affordable and nutritious foods, driving sustainable solutions to improve nutrition and food security.

In March, CNFA’s Feed the Future Hinga Weze project in Rwanda teamed up with Rwanda’s Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion for this year’s International Women’s Day celebration. As part of the celebration, Hinga Weze showcased how it facilitates women’s access to markets, thereby improving their incomes and nutritional status, and contributing to family welfare. The theme, “Together Let Us Build a Safe Family,” stands in line with how Hinga Weze works with households and communities to improve livelihoods for women and families across Rwanda.

In June, CNFA closed the U.S.-Pakistan Partnership for Agricultural Market Development (AMD) — a project implemented by CNFA with the goal of supporting the development of Pakistan’s commercial agriculture and livestock sectors. AMD aimed to improve Pakistan’s ability to meet both international and domestic demand and efficiency requirements as well as increase competitiveness through private sector engagement.

From 2015–2019, over 40,000 value chain actors received support from CNFA’s USAID-funded Resilience and Economic Growth in the Sahel-Accelerated Growth (REGIS-AG) as part of the USAID Resilience in the Sahel Enhanced (RISE) initiative — an initiative that brings together humanitarian and development assistance actors to address the root causes of chronic vulnerability to help the Sahel stay on the path to development. REGIS-AG works to increase incomes of vulnerable households by improving the performance and inclusiveness of the cowpea, poultry, and small ruminant value chains in Niger and Burkina Faso. Photo credit: Patrick Smith, USAID

In May, CNFA awarded the John H. Costello Innovation Award to Amalima team members Chris Hert and Tafadzwa Nyoni (featured far left) for their “WhatsApp Challenge” innovation — a competition aimed to gather and disseminate evidence-based impacts from the USAID Amalima program using videos submitted via WhatsApp[1]. Under the theme “Creative Solutions to Improve CNFA’s Visibility to Advance our Mission,” the challenge saw a total of 388 video submissions. The photo above shows winners celebrating as they receive their prize at the award ceremony in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.

In 2019, CNFA promoted agricultural technologies and innovations to help improve incomes, yields and access to markets such as through our Pakistan Agricultural Technology Transfer Activity (PATTA). This photo shows an agriculture technology demonstration at Kala Shah Kaku, District Sheikhupura, Punjab where more than 400 farmers and extension workers learned about new rice technologies from PATTA’s private sector and research partners. By building on CNFA’s 10-year history of successful implementation in Pakistan, PATTA is galvanizing ongoing private-sector investment to commercialize the types of agricultural technologies that enable smallholders to increase their incomes, create jobs, and enhance economic growth and stability. Photo credit: USAID Pakistan

In July, we recognized the importance of our youth through a social media campaign on World Youth Skills Day. CNFA creates opportunities for youth by providing hands-on training to build business and professional skills, offering internship programs to gain practical experience, and fostering leadership to empower youth to become productive members of their communities. For example, as part of our work with youth in Guinea, our USAID-funded Feed the Future Strengthening Agriculture Value Chains and Youth (SAVY) project trained over 140 youth to be changemakers in their communities through its Apprenticeship in Extension, Entrepreneurship and Rural Innovation (AVENIR) program.

In August 2019, CNFA launched the USAID-funded Feed the Future Nigeria Agribusiness Investment Activity at the Agribusiness Finance and Investment Summit — an event which brought together over 200 participants in Abuja, Nigeria to discuss challenges, opportunities and solutions to increase growth and expand the nation’s agribusiness sector. The Activity aims to strengthen the business enabling environment to promote private sector investment in the agriculture sector such as by improving the ease of doing business in the agricultural sector, broadening access to finance by mitigating the credit risks of agribusinesses, and promoting investment opportunities for agribusinesses to expand and scale up operations.

Leading entomologists from four U.S. universities, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Research Service, and Trécé Inc. — a leading American manufacturer of pheromone-based insect monitoring and control systems — convened for a one-week scientific mission in Georgia from August 24–29, 2019. Over the course of the week, the entomologists shared knowledge with Georgian scientists and researchers in the Black Sea region regarding monitoring and control of the brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB), a pest which threatens hazelnuts and other crops in western regions of the country. CNFA and its projects — the USAID Agriculture Program and the USAID Georgia Hazelnut Improvement Project — continue to build on the efforts of the scientific mission by providing assistance to Georgian government agencies, scientists and farmers as they combat the BMSB infestation.

In 2019, our USAID John Ogonowski and Doug Bereuter Farmer-to-Farmer (F2F) program celebrated its 26th year of implementation! Since 1993, we have supported 2,971 volunteers on assignments with lasting impacts across 17 countries in Southern Africa, Eastern Europe and East Africa. CNFA’s current F2F program aims to connect 420 mid-to senior-level U.S. volunteer experts with farmer groups, agribusinesses, trade associations, agricultural finance providers, and other agriculture sector institutions to facilitate sustainable improvements in food security and agricultural processing, production, and marketing in Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe and the Eastern European country of Moldova.

[1] WhatsApp Messenger is a freeware, cross-platform messaging and Voice over IP service owned by Facebook.