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The FAR Programme aims to create sustainable climate-smart agricultural solutions for households in Mozambique who often face challenges of food security due to harsh climatic conditions brought about by sporadic climatic changes.
Mozambique is a country at high risk from climate change affected by increasingly unpredictable rainfall, droughts as well as abnormal and extreme weather events like cyclones. These climate shocks have significant implications, mainly because most of the farmers practise rain-fed agriculture and are not adequately prepared for the changes. Consequently, food security is negatively affected. The agricultural sector is key for development in the country with an estimated 90% of the population depending on agricultural produce to gain an income or get food for their households. Limited value chain integration, insufficient or limited access to quality inputs, services and new technologies, limited capacity to invest in income diversifying activities and under-representation of female farmers’ in organisations are some of the challenges smallholders face.
The FAR Programme addresses the need for increased focus on the impacts of climate change, with regards to sustainable food security through climate-smart agriculture. It aims to address the lack of smallholder capacity and ability to manage the risks associated with climate change and shocks. The programme is implemented in selected districts of the Central Provinces of Sofala and Manica.
The interventions employed focus on three different outcomes. These are: stable food availability, stable food access and promotion of climate-smart agricultural dissemination/information systems. The programme targets both men and women but deliberately targets women, particularly female heads of plots, to increase their resilience and unleash their untapped potentials.
The programme employs the Inclusive Markets (IM) approach to trigger the systemic change in the market by building on existing ‘end-of-the market opportunities’ taking a facilitative role, rather than delivering direct services. It prioritizes the value chains of maize, rice, beans, cassava, sweet potatoes, vegetables and small animals (ducks, chicken and goats). This is based on their importance in the targeted provinces for food security and climate resilience, their potential for improvement in yields, relevance as cash crops, nutritional value, soil enrichment and suitability for crop rotation and intercropping.
The FAR Programme seeks to foster stable availability and access to food for 30,000 to 45,000 semi-subsistence and semi-commercial smallholder households. At least 50% of the beneficiaries should be women. This will be achieved through climate resilient agricultural production, value chain integration and income diversification.
Results to date