The agriculture sector faces several systemic barriers impeding land productivity. These include the fragmentation of smallholder farms, outdated farming practices resulting in low yields, and environmental degradation from unsustainable land use and input dependency. Rising temperatures, resource depletion, and extreme weather events will also further reduce crop yields, disrupt livelihoods, and threaten food security, creating an unstable agri-food system.
To solve for this wicked combination of rising population growth, a growing demand for food, low land productivity, and environmental pressures, solutions must be tailor-built and scaled for smallholders in Southeast Asia. Such solutions do exist, and it is imperative that these are right-sized and right-priced for smallholder farmers. For meaningful change to be enacted, these solutions must be targeted to have tangible and scaled impact.
Fortunately, many immediate interventions have already been created by forward-thinking practitioners. These have begun making an impact in Southeast Asia’s agriculture sector. Financing is crucial in helping effective solutions to scale and to prevent the protraction of existing social and environmental challenges. Innovative approaches to deploying philanthropic, blended, and impact capital can pave the way for funding to amplify effective solutions, leading to better outcomes for smallholder farmers and the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices.
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