Food Security

We know, that smallholder farmers in developing countries play an important role in global food security matrix.

We know, that smallholder farmers in developing countries play an important role in global food security matrix. Research has shown that more than 80% (475 million) of the world’s farms operate on less than two hectares of land, but provide an estimated 80% of the food produced in Asia and in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) (Lowder et al. 2014) 2 . Despite the key role smallholder farmers play in achieving global food security and nutrition, many of these farmers are living in poverty with limited access to markets, credits and other services.

For over 75 years, CDF Canada has been working with its partners across the three pillars of the integrated co-operative model to achieve food security and income generation.

Our Production co-op provides collaborative, hands-on learning to enable farmers to improve their farming methods, enhance their production and minimize their environmental impact.

Our Marketing co-op helps to sell the products of all coops and farmers, allotting them to have :

• a greater negotiation power thus better prices for their products and;
• building their wealth.

Finally, we closely work with the Financial coops (Credit Unions in Canada) which provides loans and with which the farmers will put their savings.

The co-operative approach produces economic and environmental benefits that help smallholder farmers to continue to improve and succeed beyond the life of any project.