Farmers’ Knowledge - COVID-19

This project supports activities aimed at responding to the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) in Senegal and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This project helps small agricultural entrepreneurs (SEA) including women and young people to sustainably increase and diversify their food production and the profitability of their farms. This project strengthens the capacities of SEAs to adopt sustainable profitable agricultural practices promoting diversification and increased production. The COVID-19 pandemic is causing a decrease in the daily income (purchasing power) of consumers lower prices in markets and reduced cash flow for processors and producers. There are difficulties in obtaining seeds and other necessary inputs in agricultural value chains. This threatens the production of farmers. In addition restaurant closings and reduced purchases in the various markets led to a reduce demand for fresh products thus reducing the anticipated income of producers and suppliers. Women groups which transform agricultural products into food are thus caught between a difficulty of access to the raw products and the possibility of finding customers for their processed products.

The expected results of this project include: In Senegal: (1) support for smallholder farmers' organizations in the purchase of grouped goods and services for the benefit of producers; (2) provision of funds for the purchase of end-of-season rice and groundnut stocks; (3) support for processing units of beneficiary women's groups on storage techniques management in times of crisis purchase of small equipment and supply of raw materials for processing; (4) redistribution of part of the processed products to organizations working with vulnerable populations (e.g. orphanages). In the Democratic Republic of the Congo: (5) support to food production by providing the scaling up of collective vegetable production plots already in place. These activities should reach 13 723 direct beneficiaries (including 6 175 women) and 41 169 indirect beneficiaries (including 21 778 women).