More specifically, impact-driven smallholder agricultural lenders can replicate existing proven financing models and innovate new financing products.
And many of our programs on the ground have allowed families and smallholder farmers to weather the crisis.
However, smallholder production is often characterized by low yields, low quality, poor linkages, and little access to finance.
To get to the remaining 90 percent and truly unlock smallholder potential, investors can explore two additional pathways.
Young smallholder farmers need skills training to protect their crops against climate change, and cope with increasing land scarcity.
The demand for smallholder agricultural financing cannot be addressed with a single strategy.
Comparing Yele, which has since closed its doors, to the Timberland and Smallholder Farmers Alliance partnership is like comparing apples to oranges.
Partly, it is because African leaders and foreign donors have been almost equally indifferent to smallholder farmers and simple improvements to soil and seeds.
In response to consumer preferences for ethical and sustainable sourcing, traceability, and quality, companies have also made bold sustainability commitments that implicate smallholder value chains.
Land reform is not the only problem for the aspirant smallholder.
Timberland partnered with Smallholder Farmers Alliance, a local non-governmental organization (NGO), to meet its commitment of helping plant 5 million trees in a five-year period.
Impact-driven smallholder agricultural lenders such as Root Capital, Oikocredit, Triodos, and Rabobank have played a catalytic role in driving financing into this market.
Timberland and Smallholder Farmers Alliance are helping local farmers learn how to improve crop yields, develop eight community tree nurseries and support agricultural training centers in the region.
Furthermore, industry alliances and working groups can be strengthened or established in order to develop and promote best practices among investors, multinational buyers, and other actors in the smallholder finance ecosystem.
"He helped us a lot, we didn't know anything about oranges, " says Pauline Lueba, a smallholder who today earns a steady income by selling the oranges from her 800 trees to major retail chains across South Africa.
CNN: Agriculture must play 'critical role' in Africa's future
After building a financial services company in the United States and leading an agribusiness social enterprise in Kenya, Madison combined the insights from his professional experiences to start Farm Shop, an organization that aims to increase the incomes of the entire supply chain of smallholder producers in Kenya by creating retail agri-inputs franchises.
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