News

Improving value chain participation of agricultural cooperatives through private sector partnership

PHILIPPINES – East-West Seed (EWS), the global leader in the tropical vegetable seeds market, launched a capacity-building partnership initiative for seven (7) farmer cooperatives on July 22, 2020, as part of the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID)-funded Generating Rural Opportunities by Working with Cooperatives (GROW-Coop) project. 

Sustainable carbon farming and carbon credits business models

In April this year Rugwegwe Olivier N. joined Agriterra’s commissioned research on sustainable carbon farming and carbon credits business models for farmers in emerging economies, focusing on Kenya as a case study. He wrote a blog about his internship. 

Powerwoman 11: Norah Asio Ebukalin

Agriterra trained 14 strong willed female (future) leaders in the first ever ‘Female Leadership in Agricultural Cooperatives Masterclass’, held in Kenya. The group is composed of Zambian, Ugandese and Kenyan participants, representing organisations that are active in coffee, dairy, sunflower or credit and saving.

Main purpose of the masterclass is to strengthen the leadership skills of these women. These highly motivated cooperative leaders return full of energy and ambitions back to their respective cooperatives, better equipped to take up their leadership roles and make a change contributing to closing the gender gap in agricultural cooperatives.

Powerwoman 11: Norah Asio Ebukalin from PKWI farmer to farmer cooperative

Carbon farming in the global south

Ashiraf Migade is doing an internship at Agriterra about carbon farming and carbon credits. Read his blog below. 

Powerwoman 10: Grace Sitenei

Agriterra trained 14 strong willed female (future) leaders in the first ever ‘Female Leadership in Agricultural Cooperatives Masterclass’, held in Kenya. The group is composed of Zambian, Ugandese and Kenyan participants, representing organisations that are active in coffee, dairy, sunflower or credit and saving.

Main purpose of the masterclass is to strengthen the leadership skills of these women. These highly motivated cooperative leaders return full of energy and ambitions back to their respective cooperatives, better equipped to take up their leadership roles and make a change contributing to closing the gender gap in agricultural cooperatives.

Powerwoman 10: Grace Sitenei (53) from Chepkorio Dairies Limited

Advisory services to potato farmer cooperatives via Skype

As we all know the world is facing difficult moments caused by Covid19. To cope with this situation, Agriterra through its peer to peer approach is still advising potato cooperatives in Rwanda using skyping technology. For example, we have started exchanging good agriculture practices for Irish potato production especially on seed potato multiplication together with Dutch seed potato grower Paul Cryns (member of Agrico). Paul Cryns was supported by his wife Sandra and together they shared their expertise. This was most welcomed by all potato Agriterra clients in Rwanda as they are still able to access the proper agronomic practices for growing potatoes.

Internship about carbon farming in Nepal

Intern Marlies van den Nieuwenhof wrote the following blog: 

My internship at Agriterra started at May 11 and ended at July 3. I am a third year Animal Husbandry student at the HAS University of Applied Sciences in ‘s-Hertogenbosch. Because of COVID-19 I could not go abroad and I had to work from home. The first week of my internship I had an online introduction with Agriterra, where I spoke with several people to learn about the company. Working from home was a little strange at the beginning, but I got used to it very quickly.

Mechanisation: a climate adaptation strategy for smallholder farmers in Africa

Did you know a simple practice such as timely planting is a Climate Smart Agricultural Practice? Timely planting for a smallholder farmer, as simple as it may sound, depends on several factors that the farmer is exposed to, such as availability of labour, the ability to pay for the labour on time, access to seeds and other inputs, and much more access to extension and weather information. In many cases, African smallholder farmers do not have access to all these resources at the same time. Due to the fact that most smallholder farmers are fully dependent on rain fed agriculture, a small disruption in this cycle causes significantly great losses for them.