Agriculture & Food Systems Development

Unleashing Potential, Driving Growth. DSince October 2016, Bread for the World has been implementing a large-scale project entitled  "Agroecological Innovation Network in Africa'' in various African countries with funding from the  German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). This "bundle project" on  agroecological networking is about promoting agroecological measures for food security and  supporting networking activities.  With a volume of 9,230,000 euros, a total of 15 individual sub-projects financed through the  "bundled project", which ran until the end of 2022. One of these sub-projects is a project under Bread  for the World’s own sponsorship (PieT). The preparation of the case studies is carried out as an activity  under this PieT.  We worked on 2 thematic bundles of 5 case studies on the topics of  "Communicating agroecological approaches to food security (quantity and quality) of smallholder  families" and "Influencing government decision-makers nationally and supra-regionally to align their  policies with securing the right to food and livelihoods of the poor population". The objectives of the project were: Partner organizations competently communicate agroecological approaches on food security (quantity and quality) to smallholder families and Partner organizations influence government decision-makers nationally and  internationally to align their policies with securing the right to food and livelihoods of the  poor.iscover Scio - your partner in nurturing dynamic ecosystems, empowering entrepreneurs, and propelling higher education towards a prosperous and innovative future.

Our contribution
Preparation of five case studies on the topic area "Lobbying: competent lobbying and advocacy work regarding agroecology and smallholder agriculture at national and international level" at selected networks and partner organisations of Bread for the World.

Extension services in Syria have been highly affected by the Covid 19 crisis. More than 50% of the extension qualified technical staff had been lost, which affected the extension coverage and outreach to farmers in various locations. About 10% of the extension units were still functioning while the remainder were destroyed or are now inaccessible.  To some extent, the existing technical staff in the public extension service had also been cut off from recent global developments in agricultural technology and extension, due to the crisis and sanctions. There was a need to update and refresh their technical knowledge and update/increase their capacity and functional skills.
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Overall, the reduction in workforce and means had affected the capacity of extension to collect data, which reflected in weakened monitoring of the agriculture season and annual planning of production. Moreover, the limited accessibility of some locations and the loss of technical staff had reduced the field presence of the service and caused some loss of trust between farmers and the extension services. Besides the public extension, farmers may also get technical advice and market information from many other players such as input dealers, market traders, private advisors and farmer organizations.A Technical Cooperation Project (TCP) was formulated in agreement with the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform (MAAR) to strengthen the capacity of extension services and modernize the advisory service system in the country, transforming its role beyond the traditional dissemination of technical advice on production to facilitating market-orientation to increase farmers’ profitability and income, giving due attention to men and women smallscale farmers.

Our contribution
Designed and conducted the assessment of extension and rural advisory services, focusing on selected regions of Syria, in line with the FAO conceptual and methodological guidelines for analysis and programming of pluralistic and market-oriented rural advisory services (PMOS).