Better Life Farming is now in West Africa (Côte d'Ivoire)

On August 1, the Better Life Farming (BLF) Alliance has successfully launched its first pilot in Ivory Coast. Following the first African BLF centers in Tanzania, BLF continues to expand in West Africa. Nine newly established centers will join the BLF community spreading across eight countries worldwide.

Over two hundred guests from global and local partners, government and other stakeholder organizations celebrated the inauguration of the first Better Life Farming pilot in West Africa. The new Better Life Farming centers, called MOAYE-Hêrê , will offer concrete solutions to cultivate better lives for smallholder farmers by meeting their needs in terms of increasing income, popularizing agri-entrepreneurship, and contributing to food security. The nine centers will help to facilitate access to smallholder farmers in the north, north-east and east of Ivory Coast. Many of them grow maize, rice, and cassava as well as various cash-crops like cashew nuts, peanuts, cocoa, and chilies.

Smallholder farmers are the backbone of the world’s food systems, with 550 million smallholders producing up to 50% of the food consumed in Low and Middle Income Countries (LMICs). Yet, they face substantial obstacles in their farming operations, including limited access to markets, finance, quality inputs and knowledge on good agricultural farming practices.

To address these challenges, the Better Life Farming pilot brings together all global alliance partners, Bayer, Netafim and IFC, as well as local partners like Advans, Farmerline, OCP, Yara, 2Scale, Koudijs, and the Fédération des Producteurs de Maïs de Côte d’Ivoire (FEPMACI). With their joint expertise, together they offer an extensive portfolio of high-quality inputs, capacity building, finance, and off-taker solutions at the different BLF locations in the north, northern east and east of the country.

The expansion of BLF to Ivory Coast builds on established Bayer programs within the region. Since its entry to West Central Africa (WCA) in 2015, Bayer has been contributing to the agricultural ecosystem with several initiatives, including the MOAYE program. The MOAYE program aims to contribute to promoting sustainability in the cocoa, corn, and cotton value chain in Ivory Coast by supporting farmers with training and access to high-quality inputs and financing solutions.

As for the first season, corn will be planted and harvested. In the future, we strive to extend the Bayer portfolio offered at the BLF centers further. We are looking forward to seeing this pilot succeed.

Grand plan du pupitre - cérémonie de lancement BLF

Danse des femmes de Korhogo - cérémonie de lancement BLF

Grand plan de la salle - cérémonie de lancement BLF

Présentation des agri-entrepreneurs - cérémonie de lancement BLF

Vue de l'ensemble de la salle avec les officiels

About Better Life Farming

BLF was founded in 2018 by Bayer, IFC and Netafim. The initiative seeks to facilitate agricultural capacity building in rural areas across Asia, Africa, and Latin America. It acts as a last-mile delivery solution to provide smallholder farmers access to high-quality agricultural inputs, services, and trainings needed to enable local farmers’ capacity building and connection to the food value chain.

At the heart of the ecosystem are BLF Centers, local shops run by agri-entrepreneurs, at which farmers can purchase high-quality products and services and which also facilitate trainings on Good Agricultural Practices (G.A.P.).

Learn more