Commercial Agriculture for Smallholders and Agribusiness Programme

The project

The CASA project helps all participants gain knowledge of the market in order to improve their interaction with each other, on both the supply and demand sides within the value chain. In this way, everyone gets to participate in the market – be it as consumers, producers, or employees. In the end, they will be able to improve their living conditions. The project fosters the competitiveness of SMEs and sustainable economic growth.

The project’s target groups include smallholder farmers, farmer organisations, mid-sized agribusinesses, suppliers of agromachinery and services, commercial investors, regulatory authorities, and political decision-makers in both donor and beneficiary countries.

The CASA project focuses on specific value chains, which differ depending on the country:

• Malawi: poultry and fish farming
• Uganda: sesame and beans
• Nepal: dairy and vegetables

Expected Results

• Project activities reach 565,000 smallholder farmers (50% women) each year, helping them to increase their incomes.
• Uplift incomes of farmers who have been involved in the project interventions to approximately CHF 105 per year.
• Additionally, it is expected that more than 5 million Swiss francs in investments will be mobilised from third parties for the benefit of smallholder farmer businesses.

Project partners

Implementing Partners

• NIRAS Development Consulting (Lead agency)

Subcontracted Partners

• The Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International (CABI)
• LTS International (who recently merged with NIRAS)
• TechnoServe