Around 80% of the world's extreme poor live in rural areas. In many developing countries, food security and rural development are ongoing challenges. Climate change and other global crises increasingly threaten rural livelihoods. Consequently, there is a rural exodus: poor farmers move to the cities in search of income, placing a greater strain on food security.
Swisscontact aims to empower male and female farmers, within their socio-cultural and territorial context, to sustainably generate additional income and to be equipped for and capable of responding to dynamically changing climate and market conditions. At the same time, we seek to contribute to transforming the agriculture sector towards more sustainability, by building capacities of relevant system actors and developing inclusive, resource efficient and resilient agricultural systems, which strengthen natural processes and ecosystems.
Swisscontact works with a systemic approach addressing main bottlenecks in agricultural value chains and systems in collaboration with private and public partners as well as academia on three levels:
Promoting access of both male and female farmers to improved agricultural products, services and know-how and increasing their ability to make use of them
This includes:
Creating market linkages and strengthening the entrepreneurial skills of farmers and farmers' organisations
Swisscontact facilitates collaboration and networks amongst relevant system actors, fostering entrepreneurial skills of farmers, organisations, and enterprises as well as building capacities of local public and private partners enabling them to deliver improved support services such as:
Enhancing the enabling environment for improved performance, inclusiveness, and resilience of the overall system
Swisscontact supports the development and implementation of rules, regulations and policies which foster inclusiveness and resilience in the long-term and contribute to a sustainable transformation of agricultural systems by: