Smallholder farmers today produce around one-third of the world’s food supply, including up to 80% in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. They are key to achieving global food security, especially with the population expected to reach 10 billion by 2050. At the same time these farmers face poverty due to their inability to access crucial financing, lack of scale, and insufficient market knowledge when negotiating with customers. They are squeezed by increasing costs of key inputs, including chemicals, fertilizers, seeds, and water but prices they receive for their crops have not increased in tandem.
Source: citigroup.com
