FtMA activities began in 2017, with the objective to overcome existing bottlenecks in smallholder farmer value chains, and to promote sustainable food systems. We have scaled operations and are already actively engaging over 800 Farmer Service Centres (FSCs), reaching over 196,000 smallholder farmers across 13 counties. These activities have amounted to over 33,000 MT of crops aggregated. In Kenya, FtMA focuses on 5 value chains -sorghum, potatoes, maize, soya bean and rice.

In Rwanda our team has made great progress in creating sustainable market solutions for farmers. In this season, 98% of all sales by FtMA-supported farmers have gone to contracted buyers, the majority of which to a local producer of fortified blended foods targeted to improve nutrition of the population in the region. These products require a high quality of the raw materials, especially very low levels of aflatoxins.We are currently reaching more than 85,000 farmers and will continue to scale up in anticipation of the next season.

Most of Tanzanian smallholder farmers rely solely on rain-fed agriculture. During drought seasons their harvests are severely compromised and many fail to produce impacting the supply of key crops like maize in the neighbouring countries. The frequency of droughts has increased significantly in the recent years and the absence of crop insurance in the country puts farmers at high risk. This results in low farming incomes, further undermined by problems in accessing credit for agricultural production and marketing. 

Zambia’s availability of fertile land and water presents a huge opportunity for smallholder farmers. However, productivity is extremely low by global standards due to poor farming practices, limited access to inputs and technologies and underdeveloped rural infrastructure.
As a first step, FtMA has embraced the challenge of Zambia’s vastness and set up a network of aggregator ‘hubs’ to facilitate engagement with private sector stakeholders.