Designed for international scalability and self-sufficiency
APCNF’s groundbreaking agroecology innovations have successfully scaled in India from 40,000 to one million farmers in 6 years. Delegates from over 50 countries expressed interest in adapting APCNF locally. To address this opportunity, NOW Partners Foundation, with experience in scaling innovation movements cross-sectorally and internationally, created the Natural Farming Global initiative.
While APCNF is adaptive and scalable by design and profitable for farmers, adapting it to diverse country contexts requires initially substantial philanthropic support to catalyze the agricultural transition process to natural methods, which are highly innovative and significantly different from both chemical and organic farming. This includes investment in adaptation research, knowledge exchange, co-innovation, capacity building, value addition and commercialization.
Our adaptation and scaling strategy is modular, allowing flexibility in regard to available funding, local capacity and other conditions.
Starting with pilots in Zambia, NOW and Rythu Sadhikara Samstha (RySS), the organization that developed and leads APCNF, work together to combine APCNF’s high performing agriculture innovations with NOW’s global network and capacity to identify and work with local partners to respectfully adapt and scale the farming innovations in diverse contexts.
Within one year, promising results were in implementation in Zambia, with pilot activities in Sri Lanka and scoping underway in Brazil and the Philippines.
NOW identifies implementation partners as part of a long term plan towards systems change. These partners are involved from the outset, bringing key stakeholders to the table together that are crucial for long term scaling.
Implementation partner criteria:
For lasting systems change and impact, our scaling strategy incorporates interventions for self-sustained growth.
Collaboration with local and international partners is crucial to integrate the farming production into the full value chain so that farmers can more fully participate in the value creation and so that overall food security and nutrition quality can be enhanced.
NOW develops blended finance solutions that integrate national and international investors from the public and private sector. These locally adapted investment solutions leverage the initially needed, catalytic grant funding into sustainable, market-based, return generating finance solutions that expand the piloting to scaling and then to full integration into the economic mainstream.
Natural Farming Global supports empowered farmers and their communities through an integrated approach that includes bridging partner teams, government liaising, materials and training, research, markets, social capital and finance interventions.
