agriculture

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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.

Gates Foundation (Flickr) "/>

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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.

Vilseskogen (flickr)"/>

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Social Enterprise

As aid to Haiti slows, a private co-op scores loans and turns heads

This article was republished by The Christian Science Monitor.

Malawian boys are proud of their family's dairy cows. Photo: Jennifer Hyman/Land O'Lakes International Development

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Value Chains

Land O'Lakes finds success with dairy micro co-ops in Malawi

The top US dairy cooperative has brought decades of expertise to Malawi, creating micro co-ops that pool their milk for purchase by one of the country's largest processors.

Koblah Agbeta holds up rice seeds from his farm in Abutia Kpota, Ghana. Quality seeds are critical for a good harvest. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48639212@N02/4775000120/">Gates Foundation (Flickr)</a>

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Value Chains

GMO wars should take back seat to other farm issues, says DuPoint Pioneer

A corporate seed manufacturer is suggesting that slowing the spread of genetically modified crops would be acceptable, if that's what it takes to keep industrializing Africa's farms.

Like this farmer in Kenya, the challenge in Tanzania is connecting smallholder farmers to larger markets. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ciat/5366702717/sizes/z/">CIAT International Center for Tropical Agriculture</a>

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Value Chains

How a Tanzania NGO scrapped grants to build markets that last

When it comes to solving poverty, sometimes the best way to get more done is to move out of the driver's seat.

Kenyan smallholder farmers. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/38476503@N08/5367334314/">Photo: CIAT International Center for Tropical Agriculture (flickr)</a>

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Value Chains

Four ways to make contract farming work for the very poor

Will contract farming, done right, serve as the missing link between small farmers and markets?

A farmer in Manthralaya, India plows his field. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/58925091@N00/136310496/">Ananth BS (Flickr)</a>

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Value Chains

Farmers invest 50 times more in farms than their countries get in aid

Kevin Spencer (flickr)"/>

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Value Chains

Why the biggest brand sometimes isn't the best innovation partner

A new case study of the Ethiopian bean industry includes a depressing anecdote reminding us that innovation rarely starts at the top of the market.

By increasing the amount of food harvested per year, Bangladesh has been able to decrease the number of undernourished people<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/worldbank/8054518284/sizes/z/in/set-72157603951157081/">World Bank (flickr)</a>

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Financial Inclusion

Fighting poverty without rapid growth: Bangladesh shows how it's done

Bangladesh is living proof that empowering and assisting the poor can sharply cut poverty even without rapid growth.

Crops resilient to climate change are especially important to farmers in developing countries. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/cimmyt/5210265334/">CIMMYT (Flickr)</a>.

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Value Chains

As climate becomes a moving target, 'virtual crops' aim for the future

Climate change is threatening crop survival. Some researchers believe the solution lies in "virtual crops."

World Bank Photo Collection (flickr)"/>

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Value Chains

As Chinese farming goes global, some see risks

The reorientation of Chinese agriculture to an export-centric model is creating unprecedented domestic growth, but there may be a hidden cost to developing nations.