EAST AFRICA
Farmers
RE ACH
H I GH E R I N U GA N DA
More than 40,000 farmers and agribusinesses in the rice and
potato value chains of Uganda will experience stronger market
engagement and agriculture support services as a result of
the new IFDC project Resilient Efficient Agribusiness Chains
(REACH) Uganda. With funding from the Embassy of the
Kingdom of the Netherlands in Uganda, REACH-Uganda will
sustainably integrate smallholder farmers into the commercial
supply chains of lead firms and small and medium enterprises.
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REACH-Uganda launched during March 2017, along with
the Dutch-funded Integrated Seed Sector Development
(ISSD) Plus project. During the projects’ launch event, Henk
Jan Bakker, Dutch Ambassador to Uganda, said, “Uganda’s
agriculture sector has a great potential to transform the
country and the livelihood of Ugandans. Using our Dutch
experience and success in agriculture, we believe that by the
end of 2020, at least 350,000 households will be positively
impacted by the projects.”
Building on Past Success
From 2012 to 2016, IFDC assisted 70,235 farmers in increasing
their income by 50 percent through the CATALIST-Uganda
project. REACH-Uganda will leverage the farmer networks
developed under CATALIST and transform them into effective
business structures.
Making Markets Work for the Poor
Resource-poor farmers are active market participants with
underutilized potential. REACH-Uganda will employ Making
Markets Work for the Poor (M4P), which seeks to change
the way that markets work so that poor people are included
in the benefits of growth and economic development. IFDC
will partner with Cardno Emerging Markets, a private sector
business development and market engagement firm, to
implement M4P and connect low-income entrepreneurs to
large commercial firms. Ultimately, REACH will link 30,000