Mozambique—Promoting Sustainable Agricultural Market System (PROMAS)

The Promoting Sustainable Agricultural Market System (PROMAS) project is creating a more competitive, inclusive, climate-resilient market in northern Mozambique. The team applies a market systems approach to increase the income and employment opportunities of male and female smallholder farmers, youth, and micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs).

Partnering with Swiss development organization Helvetas, DAI is working to: enhance the productivity of smallholder farmers with a special focus on women and young people; improve agriculture input and output markets for smallholder farmers and MSMEs in peri-urban and rural areas; increase the availability of adequate risk management and related instruments for smallholder farmers to absorb adverse weather-related shocks; and develop policies and regulations conducive to inclusive agricultural value chain development.

PROMAS draws upon an unrivaled knowledge base gained during the DAI-led InovAgro project, SDC’s flagship market systems project—to ensure PROMAS interventions deliver sustainable, high-impact results in northern Mozambique.

Sample Activities

• Identify priority risks and identify interventions to help farmers adapt to present and future climate challenges.
• Incentivise suppliers and agro-dealers to map out and promote crop varieties that are appropriate to the different agroecological zones.
• Incentivize market partners to promote climate adaptation practices such as conservation farming, crop rotation, and drought-resistant and short-season seed varieties.
• Engage with the National Seed Authority to explore options for sustainability.
• Promote inter- and intra-sector dialogues (seeds, output markets, finance) to establish platforms that can lobby and advocate for factors that affect their sectors to provincial and national government.
• Expand financial products for agribusiness MSMEs.