Over the last 25 years, American innovation and assistance has helped to cut extreme poverty in half and save millions of lives around the world while generating a significant return on investment for US Investors. The State Department, USAID, and America’s development agencies are engaging new partners, assembling private sector resources, and developing approaches to solve global challenges in health, agriculture, and energy – creating new forms of public-private partnerships and leveraging taxpayer dollars for increases in our nation’s security and prosperity. Land O’Lakes Venture37 working with USAID Feed the Future, is solving a tough challenge through the Resilient Agricultural Markets Activity-Beira Corridor (RAMA-BC) initiative with an objective to increase on-farm agricultural productivity, profitability and resilience to climate variability by strengthening the market system supporting resilient conservation agriculture practices in the Beira Corridor. The Beira Agricultural Growth Corridor initiative is a public-private partnership between the Government of Mozambique, private investors, farmer organizations and international agencies to boost agricultural productivity and competitiveness in the region. The BAGC welcomes all stakeholders with an interest in promoting profitable agriculture in the Beira Corridor.
The Partnership
The BAGC Partnership is registered as an Association under Mozambican law, with a broad-based, private and public sector membership, farmer organizations, service provider and policy maker / enabler stakeholders. Within this, the membership has elected a representative Board to oversee the implementation of the Partnership’s objectives, comprising a sub-set of the most actively engaged stakeholders. The Board of Directors are drawn from each of the main constituents of the Partnership:
One representative of the Ministry of Agriculture (FDA);
One representative of the National Farmer´s Organization
Two representatives of the private sector; and
The Head of the Secretariat. The BAGC Secretariat is based within the Corridor provides a platform for the coordination and facilitation of operational support for the work of the partnership.
A key component of the RAMA-BC approach is to promote the integration of leguminous cover crops and minimum soil disturbance in maize production systems. Introducing local smallholder farmers in Mozambique to practices that increase their productivity, profitability and resilience to climate change. By establishing model family farms in the region, the initiative demonstrates to nearby farmers the value of best practices like minimum tillage and intercropping of nitrogen-fixing legumes in maize fields which replenishes soil, repels pests, and provides an out-of-season source of nutrition for families.
Results
In 2019, Land O’Lakes Venture37 and USAID helped nearly 8,000 farmers implement resilient agricultural technologies or management practices. Since the project began in 2017, the program has encouraged the improvement of more than 51,000 hectares (or 126,000 acres) of land, worked with 41 private sector enterprises (such as seed companies and agrodealers) and formed 21 public-private, community-based partnerships based in the communities.