agriculture

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Financial Inclusion

Interview: Mobile services a ‘game changer’ for financial inclusion

Pairing information access with mobile cash services opens new doors for farmers and other low-income residents of developing countries.

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Value Chains

Two companies making trade fairer without 'fair trade'

When fair trade farming didn’t pay enough for one farmer to make ends meet, he started a new coffee company to take control of the production process and boost profits.

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Value Chains

Quotable: Land O'Lakes seeds economic opportunity and peace through dairy farming

How do you boost farmers in post-conflict regions like Sri Lanka? Jon Halverson of Land O'Lakes discusses how the U.S. dairy co-op blended commercial and development work in an interview on DevEx.

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Financial Inclusion

Unleashing Ugandan farmers’ potential through mobile phones

A powerful new mobile platform combining agriculture information and financial services specifically designed for farmers in Uganda is going live, helping them plow even more value from each acre.

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Value Chains

Pairing risk reduction with income generation makes communities more resilient

People earning money are more likely to protect their homes, land and life before disaster strikes, rather than only responding after traumatic events occur.

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Social Enterprise

Mercy Corps partnership ushers in the mobile age for rural Filipino farmers

Filipino rice farmers will soon pad their mobile wallets with more than just mobile money: they'll get on-demand farming advice, too.

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Social Enterprise

Mercy Corps’ Agri-Fin Mobile program goes live in Indonesia, Uganda, and Zimbabwe

A unique “bundled” mobile service is changing the way smallholder farmers conduct business.

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Value Chains

A new paradigm for food aid: Building new local food businesses

Crunch time! How a 1-year USDA grant reshaped a Bangladesh cereal market.

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Value Chains

Bolivian farmers earn a title to their land 40% faster with better technology

Unjust land holdings in developing countries create and sustain inequality, but new mobile phone technology is simplifying the land titling process and securing plots for farmers.

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Value Chains

Who says GMOs are necessary? Small farmer shatters rice record

Genetically modified organisms cover six percent more farmland every year, setting a global record of 170.3 million hectares in 2012. While some applaud GMO crops, farmers from Mexico to India are denouncing them.

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Financial Inclusion

Two ways to get farm loans where they're needed most: the boonies

To get small staple-crop farmers the loans they need, lenders must use new approaches tailored to the 90 percent of smallholders not in farmer organizations.

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Value Chains

Chocolate shortage by 2020? How mini loans could save the day

Social lenders aren't meeting poor farmers' financing needs. If commercial buyers don't provide more capital, the world could face shortages of luxury cash crops.

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Value Chains

Natural disasters cost corporations $400 billion in 2011, UN says

Environmental disasters not only cripple smallholder farmers, they also mean high costs for the corporations at the buying end of the supply chain. A forthcoming UN report will show just how detrimental those costs can be.

Encouraging youth to pursue farming may be the answer to both unemployment issues and fading crop yields. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gatesfoundation/5075935331/in/photostream/">Gates Foundation (Flickr)</a>

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Youth Skills

Rural youth seek greener pastures in the city, but farming could get hot

Even on the farm, it pays to be young, but every year, young people are "escaping" their hometown rural communities to seek the "greener pastures" of city life. Meanwhile, global buyers of commodities such as coffee and cocoa beans worry about the aging farming workforce.

The agricultural sector accounts for a significant portion of Nigeria's GDP, but youth don't find it an attractive job. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalarchives/5418217343/">The National Archives UK (Flickr)</a>

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Youth Skills

Waiting for a white-collar job: a sure way to extend unemployment in Nigeria

The Kwara state government in Nigeria is promoting traditional vocations in an effort
to change young minds uninterested in any position outside the glamorous white-collar
realm.