Climate Resilient Agribusiness for Tomorrow

Many countries across East Africa are experiencing the far-reaching consequences of climate change, not only on the agricultural sector, but also on the management of natural resources as well as the food security of the growing urban and rural populations.

To tackle those challenges, the CRAFT project, funded by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, aims to increase the availability of climate-smart foods for the growing populations of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

During its initial phase (June 2018 – December 2023), SNV (lead) spearheaded the project's implementation in collaboration with Wageningen University and Research (WUR), Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA), Agriterra, and Rabo Partnerships across the three target countries.

CRAFT was then extended for an additional eighteen-month, from January 2024 to June 2025, with the same objectives and implemented by SNV (lead) in partnership with Wageningen University and Research (WUR) and Agriterra.

Project objectives:

• Increasing adoption of climate smart practices and technologies amongst farmers and agro enterprises.

• Increasing investments and business growth in climate smart value chains.

• Creating the enabling environment necessary to ensure large-scale roll out of market driven climate smart agriculture.

The project aims to focus in its new phase on scaling up long-term impact, leveraging its experience to enhance the implementation of its initiatives and enable the increased and sustained adoption of climate-smart agriculture. Knowledge sharing and learning will be an essential element to achieve this. Practices, technologies, approaches, and methodologies that have proven to be successful will be shared and scaled. Gender equality and opportunities for youth employment will be integrated in the project’s implementation.

More specifically, the project will concentrate on:

• Coaching and supporting the highest performing Business Champions (BCs) with growth potential to improve their performance and their impact for smallholder farmers.

• Improving actionable climate analysis products for different crops to improve climate smart decision making.

The project will continue implementing the following activities:

• Climate risk analysis of targeted value chains and identification of business opportunities that address climate change in agriculture.

• Business case development and co-investment through the climate innovation and investment facility with private sector, SMEs, and farmer cooperatives.

• Levering investments by facilitating access to finance in collaboration with financial institutions.

• Policy influencing and operationalisation of climate plans.

• Feedback of practical applicability of climate smart practices, technologies, models, and climate services.

The primary target groups of the project will include small and medium entrepreneurial farmers, SME agribusinesses, and service providers to these SMEs, as well as financial institutions and government agencies that play a key role in creating an enabling environment that can foster large-scale roll-out of climate-smart agriculture in East Africa.

The impact of CRAFT so far has expanded both nationally and internationally, marked by a heightened presence on platforms supported by evidence-based testimonies and comprehensive documentation.