We support partners in the public and private sectors across several African countries that are committed to transforming smallholder agriculture into a sustainable, inclusive foundation of economic opportunity.

We look to governments to take the lead in developing strategies and priorities, and our investments seek to strengthen their capacity to implement their action plans. For example, we help them collect evidence to support agricultural programs and policies that have proven to be particularly effective for smallholder farmers in Africa.

In the private sector, we partner with local small and medium-sized businesses to scale up innovative ways to serve the needs of smallholder farmers. We also collaborate with larger firms on new ways of incorporating smallholder farmers into their business models

We support efforts in key areas of Asia to develop diversified farming and food systems that improve access to affordable, nutritious food and strengthen market opportunities for smallholder producers.

We are currently working in India to strengthen government capacity in the states of Bihar, Odisha, and Uttar Pradesh to implement agricultural development programs that serve the needs of smallholder producers. This includes helping government officials generate evidence to guide policy development, resource allocation, and strategies that expand market opportunities for smallholder producers.

We support public-sector crop breeding programs in Africa and Asia, which have developed considerable insights into the needs and preferences of local farmers, processors, and consumers

A key goal of our investments is to accelerate breeding work that can provide new crop varieties with traits that are aligned with local growing conditions and farmer and consumer preferences. Farmers in many countries can wait 20 to 30 years before a new variety becomes available. Ideally, that process should take five to 10 years—especially as farmers seek to adapt to the surge of challenges caused by climate change.

We invest in crop research, with the goal of providing new advances that farmers can use to sustainably increase their productivity.

We fund crop science programs that work in close consultation with local farmers so researchers can pursue targeted innovations that are likely to see widespread adoption.

A key priority is to provide farmers with many options for safely and sustainably adapting to the numerous challenges brought about by climate change, such as an increase in droughts, flooding, high temperatures, and an array of crop pests and diseases.

Our investments also focus on maintaining and expanding crop diversity—ensuring that farmers have what they need to provide consumers with a wider menu of options for eating a healthy, sustainable diet.

We also invest in bold new efforts that could sustainably deliver dramatic improvements in agricultural production. For example, we support research that has the potential to boost crop yields by 30 percent or more simply by improving plant photosynthesis—a crop’s natural ability to harvest energy from the sun.

We support local and national efforts to develop food systems anchored by smallholder producers that can sustainably deliver safe, affordable, and nutritious food year-round to low-income people.

Building sustainable and resilient food systems that produce nutritious crops and livestock products requires a holistic approach that supports many different actors—including farmers, processors, traders, food companies, and retailers.

For example, our investments are helping farmers sustainably produce a broad range of nutritious crops as well as milk, eggs, and other livestock products that are rich in protein and essential micronutrients. Most individuals in low-income countries eat much less meat, milk, and eggs than consumers in wealthy countries. These nutrient-dense products can play a big role in achieving proper nutrition, especially among children.

We also support efforts to develop policies and practices that more efficiently connect farmers to markets, to ensure that consumers have consistent access to an assortment of healthy and affordable foods.

Our work on nutritious food systems is significantly co-financed by the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development.

We work to ensure that public- and private-sector agricultural development efforts in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are supported by targeted resources from donors and are aligned with the goals of global institutions such as the World Bank.

Our medium-term priorities in global policy and advocacy are twofold: 1) to ensure that resources from bilateral donors and the global agricultural financing architecture are aligned with the roadmap for achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and 2) to ensure that donor resources are directed toward generating global public goods and supporting national agricultural development plans that will contribute to achieving SDG 2 (ending hunger) and SDG 2.3 (doubling smallholder productivity and incomes).

Our livestock investments support smallholder livestock keepers in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia in their efforts to sustainably raise healthy, productive animals.

For hundreds of millions of families across sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, livestock are the most valuable household asset and an irreplaceable source of a nutritious diet, especially for children.

With regional demand for livestock products rapidly growing, access to better feed, breeds, and veterinary services will be critical to managing sustainable production on smallholder farms—as well as ensuring that smallholder livestock can increase household income, improve nutrition, and expand economic opportunities for women.

Our work in this area focuses on animal health, animal production, and animal systems. Our approach to livestock development seeks more effective engagement by global and regional technical entities, more progressive and effective national policies, and a more vibrant private sector that can reliably deliver affordable products and services to smallholder producers.

Our agricultural investments play an important role in the foundation’s broader effort to empower women and girls with economic opportunities.

For agricultural transformation to be truly inclusive, women must have equitable opportunities to participate and prosper. Around the world, women play important roles in agriculture, including growing crops and tending livestock. But despite high levels of participation, women have consistently lower productivity than men. The gap is significant—as much as 23 percent in Tanzania and 66 percent in Niger, for example.

While this gap is partly due to cultural circumstances, evidence shows that systemic barriers affect the ability of women farmers to control productive resources and access information, credit, and markets. The consequences include lower farm yields and lower household incomes, as well as less potential to improve family welfare, given that women tend to invest more readily than men in their family’s well-being. Our efforts to empower women farmers therefore magnify our contributions to improving productivity, income, and nutrition outcomes for vulnerable households.

We make two kinds of investments in women’s empowerment, which together help close systematic gender gaps in productivity and access to services, markets, and entrepreneurial opportunities. One is to integrate a gender focus into all of the foundation’s agricultural investment initiatives, and the other is to seek better data to inform government policies and priorities that target the needs of women in agriculture. The latter includes supporting the development of project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI) metrics to help our grantees rigorously track whether agricultural interventions are effective at empowering women.