FarmSol’s strategy is to bring together a multitude of partners to co-create opportunities for impact and share risks and responsibilities. Partnerships like the one with SAB that supports smallholder grain farmers across eight provinces, point towards the potential that can be unlocked, says managing director Aron Kole.
To turn new era and smallholder farmers commercially viable, FarmSol is actively looking for partners throughout the supply chain – from fertiliser, seed and other input providers to processors and market leaders.
Our strategy is to bring together a multitude of partners to support a mix of crops, co-create opportunities for impact and share risks and responsibilities. With this approach, we can achieve the scale and depth of impact required to drive substantial change within the new era farming sector and accomplish a level of impact that cannot be accomplished independently.
FarmSol has been in a partnership with South African Breweries since 2016, allowing the company to link close to a thousand smallholder farmers across South Africa with a valuable multinational market for malting barley, hops and non-genetically modified maize.
Partnerships multiply impact
As part of the partnership, farmers have also gained access to valuable support services, production and infrastructure loans as well as FarmSol’s mechanisation programme, aimed at supplying farmers with planting and harvesting equipment when and where they need it.
Last year, we entered into a year-long collaboration with John Deere, which complemented its mechanisation programme by exposing farmers to John Deere’s latest farming technology.
This year, FarmSol partnered with the South African Cultivar and Technology Agency to fund crops that do not fall under the SAB umbrella.
The diversification of crops is essential, as it helps to reduce price, production and climatic risks, while increasing a farmer’s chances of success. A winning crop rotation strategy will ensure sustainable crop production, better use of natural resources and an overall improvement in yields attained.
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