Annual Report 2018: Feed the Future Partnering for Innovation

The program supports smallholders in improving their farming activities, increasing their incomes, and boosting their overall well-being. At the start of FY2018, the program focused on closing out its remaining partnerships and winding down its activities with an end date of September 30, 2018. However, after receiving a 30-month extension until March 2021, Partnering for Innovation re-focused its priorities to begin developing new partnerships in coordination with the USAID Bureau for Food Security and target USAID Missions. The program achieved significant results in FY2018, with 250,901 farmers cultivating 201,798 hectares of land benefiting from partnerships. Partners commercialized 24 technologies and management practices, with $9.17 million in sales of technologies by partners. The program also invested $5,003,000 in partnerships, with a total of $27,183,000 in leverage spent by partners to date. By the end of FY2018, 1,400,759 farmers cultivating 482,417 hectares of land had benefited from partnerships, with 50 partnerships in 17 countries. The program also commercialized 116 technologies and management practices, with $99 million in sales of technologies by partners. The technology commercialization component focused on closing out partnerships aimed at commercializing off-the-shelf agricultural technologies in smallholder markets. The program had 21 active partnerships during the reporting period, with 2 completed partnerships. The program had a total of $10.4 million in program funding to date, with $10 million in partner leverage spent to date. The program impacted 1,123,707 farmers to date. One highlight of the program was the success of Popoyán, an agricultural input supplier that established a state-of-the-art production lab and began producing and commercializing biological control products on the Guatemalan market. The partnership with African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) worked with CIMMYT, pest product company BASF, and seven seed companies to increase StrigAway production and commercial distribution with the goal of eradicating striga in smallholder farmer fields. AATF provided training, technical assistance, and funding to establish a network of demonstration sites. The partnership was one of the most complex ones the program funded, with the seed companies experiencing difficulties in growing certified seed for sale, delays in the importation and installation of equipment, and steep learning curves in packaging and marketing StrigAway seed. Despite these setbacks, the partnership achieved significant results, with over 55,000 farmers purchasing 634 MT of StrigAway maize seed. The program also provided acceleration services to 27 partners and sub-partners, including business strategy development, market assessment, and investment readiness. The program produced an in-depth study, Designing Agriculture Research that Leads to Commercialization, that provides strategies for commercializing publicly-funded agricultural research. The program also updated its solicitation, due diligence, and negotiation processes based on lessons learned to assess partners' leadership capacity and profit potential. Finally, the program released four new funding solicitations in just the last quarter, including Global Resiliency, Cambodia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Mozambique.