The Agribusiness Market Ecosystem Alliance (AMEA) is an initiative founded by partners ACDI/VOCA, SCOPEinsight, IFC, ICCO, VECO, NCBA CLUSA, and Argidius. It was launched on Wednesday, February 12, as a Commitment to Action submitted to the Clinton Global Initiative. The approach aims to impact the lives of 150,000 smallholder farmers in 15 countries in Africa, Latin America, and Asia.
AMEA will improve current capacity-building programs by offering a standardized global metric to assess farmer performance. It will also provide a training system to assure farmer development. Professional farmers earn more money, produce more sustainably, create jobs for others, and are more attractive in a business sense to potential lenders and service providers. SCOPEinsight CEO Lucas Simons explains that enhanced farmer professionalism is “key to break the poverty cycle many farmers are caught in. AMEA will make a standardized approach available for improving farming as a business.”
Of ACDI/VOCA’s role in the new initiative, SVP William Sparks comments that
“ACDI/VOCA is proud to be a founding partner of AMEA. By forming this critical alliance of likeminded organizations, we can work together toward empowering smallholder farmers in a systematic and sustainable way.”
