Building Up the Private Sector

Feed the Future partners with the private sector to promote sustainable practices and address systemic barriers that impede private sector growth.

Through these partnerships, private companies commit to sustainably improving the production and sale of agricultural products by unlocking access to financing, services, inputs and knowledge for producers in exchange for access to their products. In 2020, Feed the Future’s private sector engagement efforts leveraged over $1.1 million in private sector funds to help boost efforts in agricultural production and nutrition.

Feed the Future also facilitates public-private partnerships. For example, the World Agroforestry Center connected Malian producer groups comprising 25,000 women with Olvea, a private French company based in Burkina Faso. As a result, producer groups made over $2.4 million in total sales of shea nuts in 2019.

Strengthening Resilience Through Agriculture-Led Growth and Nutrition

Many rural families depend on agriculture for a living, so Feed the Future helps them increase their production through access to improved seeds, finance, and soil and water conservation techniques. By investing in the rice, millet, sorghum and livestock sectors, as well as vegetable and agroforestry crops, Feed the Future is improving economic opportunity, resilience and nutrition. As a result, in 2020:

• Over 76,000 Malian producers applied improved technologies and practices on 145,000 hectares of land, generating $11.4 million in agricultural sales.
• Livestock farmers reached by Feed the Future sold nearly 3,400 beef cattle for more than $2.7 million, earning a net profit of $69 per head, an increase of 155 percent over what they earned before Feed the Future’s efforts began in 2014.
• Sheep owners, many of whom are women, sold a total of more than 54,000 sheep for more than $880,000, improving their net profits.

Investing in Education, Governance and Health

For those with limited access to land and labor, access to options for employment and income off the farm and in other sectors are essential for survival. Feed the Future’s investments in education, governance and health are there to help.

• Feed the Future, CARE, the World Vegetable Center and the World Agroforestry Center trained women and men on how to produce high-value, nutrient-dense vegetables and nutritious tree-based products, while also educating them on better nutrition and hygiene.
• Feed the Future sensitization sessions reached nearly 16,000 women in child health and nutrition and conducted nutrition-related social and behavior change activities, reaching over 600,000 children under 5 with community-based nutrition support in 2020.