2024 Annual Report: Food Systems That Work for Smallholder Farmers
Amid increasing climate and other challenges to agriculture, the global community is prioritizing the transformation of our food systems to be more productive, inclusive and sustainable.
This involves finding better ways to produce, market and consume foods that are net positive for the natural environment, make nutritious foods more accessible and affordable to everyone, and ensure that the billions of farmers and food-sector workers around the world can earn decent living.
This is a tall order, yet also an urgent task. As food systems transform, Heifer International and its many partners are focused on making sure smallholder farmers are not left behind — indeed, that they are central to developing new agricultural models.
While marking Heifer’s 80th anniversary in 2024, we reaffirmed our longstanding commitment to keep smallholder farmers at the core of everything we do. We listen and engage with farmers to understand their priorities, needs and challenges — and support them to craft appropriate strategies to sustainably pull themselves and their communities out of poverty through market-led agricultural enterprises.
In our 2024 Annual Report we share several examples of how our program teams across 19 countries in Africa, Asia and the Americas have supported the integration of smallholder farmers in food systems this year, creating pathways for them to compete on a level playing field and earn enough income to invest in brighter futures for their families. Read some the highlights from this work below, or view the full report to learn more.
Strengthening Food Systems for Smallholder Farmers
Building Infrastructure and Opportunity
The Poultry Project of National Pride in Cambodia aims to enhance and modernize the country’s poultry industry by developing cooperative networks and integrating them into broader market systems.
Local governments have showed a high level of engagement in this work — for example, the government of Moha Ruessei rural commune, located southwest of the capital Phnom Penh, recently approved a 10-year concession for a 2.5-acre parcel of land (which had a commercial value of $75,900) so the Heifer-supported Social Entrepreneurs Union of Agricultural Cooperatives can operate fruit and vegetable businesses.
Enhancing Coffee and Cacao Competitiveness
The Promesa Café and Cacao Signature Program is working in Guatemala, Honduras, Ecuador and Mexico to enhance the competitiveness and resilience of 146,380 coffee and cacao farming households by supporting them to raise the quality of their products, increase productivity and improve their access to more profitable and inclusive markets.
The program intends to build robust support systems across the region by working alongside partners with the experience to navigate climate-related risks while finding and embracing opportunities to create a sustainable future for young people and women.
Solar Powered Milk Chilling Centers
To address the challenge of unreliable, inefficient, costly and polluting energy infrastructure that holds back milk processing potential in Uganda, the Solar for Sustainable Income in Dairy project has facilitated access to solar installations for dairy cooperatives to power milk chilling centers that can sustainably meet local demand for milk and milk products.
As a result of the shift to solar power, two participating cooperatives have reduced their estimated carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 11 tons per month in total (the equivalent of emissions from an average gasoline-powered passenger vehicle driven about 28,000 miles). There is strong potential to scale the project with new financial and other partners coming on board to make solar investments more attractive to cooperatives.
Connecting Farmers to Profitable Markets
Naija Unlock, Heifer’s Signature Program in Nigeria, seeks to enable 2 million households to become food secure by 2030. The program prioritizes investments in three locally important value chains that also have strong potential for generating job opportunities for youth and women: poultry, tomatoes and rice.
In the poultry sector, Heifer has been collaborating with Amo Farm Sieberer Hatchery Limited, a poultry business, to develop a scalable and inclusive business model that will source from smallholder farmers. In a reflection of Heifer’s partner-led approach, Amo is building a 10,000 bird-per-day processing facility in proximity to the participant farmers while the Edo state government has committed to road and power projects to support it.
Improving Dairy Sector Competitiveness
Through the Sustainable Livestock Signature Program and with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Heifer Honduras is working directly with small and medium-sized dairy processing companies and dairy farmers to enhance milk production, improve quality and expand market access. The program also strengthens the adoption of climate-smart and regenerative agricultural practices to boost the resilience of dairy farms while mitigating environmental effects, further enabling the development of sustainable businesses and inclusive markets.
In April 2024, staff from the Heifer Ranch Center for Regenerative Agriculture led a holistic livestock management workshop in Honduras to train 100 livestock producers, farmers and program staff on sustainable and regenerative processes such as rotational grazing, cover crops and other techniques to improve sustainability and productivity. The program established demonstration farms where farmers were able to see how these techniques lead to healthier, more abundant grazing land and reduce the need to clear forestland when grazing areas degrade.
Enhancing Environmental Sustainability
Reinforcing Indigenous Roots
The Milpa for Life project, funded by the John Deere Foundation, works with Indigenous farmers in Mexico to enhance the use of regenerative practices in traditional milpa agriculture systems, in which maize is intercropped with other species, such as common beans, fava beans, squash or potatoes. The project also incorporates improved livestock management and animal well-being principles, natural fertilizers, sustainable crop production and land management practices.
This has enabled Indigenous farmers to improve their food and income security alongside the health of their land without sacrificing their heritage. Farm production data gathered from June 2023 to February 2024 showed that targeted interventions from the project increased milpa productivity for farmers by an average of 140 percent.
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Mitigating Carbon Emissions
Heifer seeks to make a positive impact on global efforts to lessen the risks of climate change. In 2024, we completed an internal study that measured the greenhouse gas emissions of our programs, specifically the agriculture, forests and other land use (AFOLU) practices promoted through the programs.
The study applied standards set by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and found that, on a net basis, Heifer programs collectively generated positive sequestration of carbon emissions that would be equivalent to taking about 2.3 million cars off the road annually.
Advancing Sustainable Livestock
The Tanzania Milk Processing Project, implemented with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has helped farmers adopt climate-resilient practices to increase their fodder production, conservation and utilization efforts through locally produced feed supplementation and using crop residues to increase their profitability and sustainability.
As a result, 54,000 dairy farmers, more than half of them women, have increased their monthly household incomes by an average of 35 percent. Dairy cow productivity grew by 26 percent, which has resulted in an increase in the amount of daily milk collection through dairy cooperatives in the project area from 56,000 liters to 129,000 liters per day.
Heifer USA Makes Regenerative Farming Accessible
In 2024, Heifer USA continued supporting smallholder farmers in the United States and across the globe by actively investing in farmer training that embraces regenerative and sustainable processes like cover crops and rotational grazing.
Heifer USA’s online training program, hosted on YouTube, has received over 3 million views and has over 122,000 subscribers. Its online tutorials and training videos allow farmers around the world to access advice, practical solutions, support and training at their own pace.
Ecosystem-Based Adaptation
In the past year, Heifer received a grant from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature to restore degraded floodplains of the Bagmati River basin in Nepal.
This work forms part of the Nepal Government Initiative and Value Chain for Inclusive Transformation of Agriculture project, which has strengthened partnerships with municipalities and local officials supporting livelihood promotion through agricultural value chains. It aims to improve the quantity of sustainably grown food and fodder crops available in this region while rehabilitating and stabilizing the floodplains.
Transforming Food Systems Through Strategic Partnerships
Integrating Youth in Agriculture
We have expanded our partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, which in fiscal year 2024 yielded two significant multiyear projects in Africa: the $47 million Stimulating Agribusiness for Youth Empowerment project in Uganda and the $12 million Meliteji Wasu dairy sector project in the West African Sahel region.
These projects build on a relationship that traces back to initial contacts in 2012 and reflects a close alignment in values with the foundation as well as other partners who are supporting these projects.
Strengthening the Dairy Sector
Under the Milky Way Signature Program, Heifer is collaborating closely with the governments of Nepal and South Korea, development banks, private sector actors and South Korean partners to address systemic barriers across the domestic dairy value chain in Nepal.
The engagement of South Korean partners in the program is an example of what’s possible when a strong foundation is established for partners to amplify impact. After Heifer International supported farmers in South Korea for many decades, they in turn embraced our Passing on the Gift® approach and donated 100 high-quality Holstein heifers and eight bulls to Nepal in support of the Milky Way effort.
Measuring Global Sustainability
In April 2024, Heifer and Alliance of Bioversity International & CIAT formally signed an agreement to establish a framework for enhanced partnership in research, development, capacity building and resource mobilization to deliver stronger support to rural smallholder farmers.
This is a testament to the success of our collaborations with CIAT, which have included a 2019 assessment of climate-smart agricultural practices in all Heifer projects that has informed and strengthened our environmental strategy, Caring for the Earth.
2024 Impact in Numbers
Heifer supported 1.3 million participant households in fiscal year 2024 and worked with 31,284 active entity partners, including cooperatives, self-help groups, privately-owned hubs, farmer-owned hubs, public institutions, NGOs and service providers. These partner entities generated $76 million in total sales for their members and communities over the course of the year. In total, Heifer has supported 52.6 million households since 1944.
Read More
Read the 2024 Annual Report to learn more about our work with partners and farmers around the world to develop strategies for participating productively, profitably and sustainably in food systems.
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