Agriculture is the backbone of any developing nation, offering the best opportunity for the poor and impoverished to lift themselves out of poverty. With its vast fertile landscape and favorable climate conditions, we believe that Africa should not only be able to feed itself, but also potentially to feed the world. Why does agriculture hold such promise? It’s all in the numbers. For starters, there’s the sheer number of Africans working in the sector—70% of the African population depends directly on agriculture for their livelihood. In financial terms, the current food market value sits at $300bn, and that figure is projected to rise to $1tn by 2030. This means that all nations should, and must, give the sector the attention it deserves.

“Agriculture’s value goes beyond providing our basic human need for food. It grows our economies and, more importantly, it changes society.”

Africans face many challenges in their day-to-day lives; among these are access to good healthcare, education, and other social benefits. A large percentage of Africans still survive on less than a dollar a day, despite their lands being endowed with an abundance of natural resources.

We believe the only way to change this situation is to give Africans the tools they need to tap into those natural resources, to lift themselves out of poverty and contribute to the economic growth of their nation. Our unique “Farming as a Business” (FAAB) model hinges on providing rural farmers with an end-to-end solution that supports them from seed to market.

Image: Picture of Zedliner Rural page

The model is used to develop the skills and capacity of small-scale farmers, helping them to adopt a commercial perspective and approach to their farming and livelihood activities. There is a strong emphasis on sustainability, focusing on profit, diversification and expansion of their activities. This approach will increase their resilience to various socioeconomic shocks, including climate change.

One major barrier faced by the average African is access to formal institutional credit, and therefore the capital required to invest in the tools they need. Armed with skills development programs—covering such topics as farming as a business, the right tools and financing— these farmers will be able to grow, harvest, transport and sell their crops in a streamlined process that gets their crops to market more quickly, resulting in less waste and increased revenue to the farmer. Put simply, if we invest in these farmers by giving them access to seeds and fertilizer, and by ensuring access to information on proper farming practices, yields will increase. Linking these farmers to national and regional markets should, at the bare minimum, double their incomes. It will also improve the lives of millions of rural farmers, while at the same time growing rural economies and securing them access to otherwise hard-to-reach services such as good-quality education, health services and off-farm jobs.