Building a more secure and affordable food supply

Vulnerable communities that depend on farming and fishing are hit especially hard, as they face more difficult growing conditions, crop losses, rising costs and related financial stresses.

IDRC supports research around the globe to address these challenges through the collaborative work of researchers with local organizations and communities. Together, we are building more resilient and affordable food systems that can withstand shocks. 

Groundbreaking research in Brazil, Kenya and Malaysia show how communities are transforming the way they produce food while protecting the ecosystems people and economies depend on.

Climate-smart insurance empowers Kenyan smallholder farmers

In Machakos County, Kenya, where smallholder farmers like Elizabeth Musembi face a relentless struggle against unpredictable weather, a breakthrough in climate-smart insurance has become a beacon of hope.

Musembi and most of her community are subsistence farmers growing crops such as maize, sorghum and cowpeas on small plots of land. They have all experienced firsthand the devastating effects of drought and unreliable rainfall in this semi-arid region where the drying up of rivers and soil erosion make agriculture a precarious way of life.

Crop insurance is one way to create greater security for smallholder farmers. But past, ill-adapted insurance schemes have failed Musembi’s community, like many others. Farmers have paid premiums only to be left without compensation when droughts destroyed their crops, leaving them disillusioned and feeling exploited.

Trials using picture-based crop insurance have changed the narrative. Farmers like Musembi began to use simple cellphone images to document their crops, allowing the insurance company to verify losses efficiently and transparently. This system enables farmers and insurers to monitor the progress of crops throughout the season in a process that is not only accessible, but also trustworthy. It brings a much-needed safety net to smallholder farmers.

Research supported by the Cultivate Africa’s Future Fund, a joint program of IDRC and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, prioritized women like Musembi to champion the new insurance system, recruiting more women than men. Musembi herself became one of the highest sellers of insurance policies, gaining valuable digital skills and earning commissions and incentives. 

Musembi described her participation in the project as life-changing.

So can many other farmers. Champions like Musembi reached more than 36,000 farmers (61% female). The program provided 8,500 insurance policies, which resulted in thousands of swift insurance payouts following droughts and floods. 

“Instead of losing the entire growing season, farmers reinvested in seeds and fertilizers,” said Musembi. “In this sense, the insurance program has helped our farmers become self-sustaining,” 

The ripple effects of the project went beyond insurance coverage. Alongside insurance, farmers were introduced to climate-smart agricultural practices, such as planting drought-resistant crops and improving irrigation systems. 

With the success of this innovative effort, Musembi’s community has more trust in the protection that insurance can offer, and more confidence about the future. The trials have shown that with the right tools and support, smallholder farmers can safeguard their livelihoods and better weather some of the challenges of a changing climate.

Agribusiness that restores nature and communities in the Amazon 

Wildfires and illegal logging and mining threaten the standing forest and livelihoods of the traditional communities in the Calha Norte region of the Brazilian Amazon. Indigenous, quilombola (Afro-Brazilian) and riverine families living in small, isolated villages rely primarily on the sustainable collection of forest products and family agriculture for their income and livelihood. 

A network of Indigenous suppliers, 40% of them women, collects non-timber forest products, including Brazil nuts, and grows pepper. Their cooperative — the Cooperativa Mista dos Povos e Comunidades Tradicionais da Calha Norte (COOPAFLORA) — sells the harvests to large companies and produces oils for direct consumer sales.

COOPAFLORA is working to preserve the Amazon rainforest and strengthen its bioeconomy by supporting the more sustainable collection of products harvested without cutting trees and in a way that enables the region to withstand shocks.

“Members of the cooperative can access much higher returns on the produce grown [and collected] in our communities, which has raised our standard of living,” said the cooperative’s president, Daiana Figueiredo da Silva. “Housing has improved, meals have become more nutritious, and local families are enjoying an enhanced quality of life. 

COOPAFLORA is an example of regenerative agribusiness. These enterprises introduce crop diversity and improve soil health and water management without the use of chemicals. They promote ways of harvesting and farming that not only avoid harming the environment but actually restore it. Communities are also restored in the process, for example through initiatives that promote gender equality.

IDRC is supporting the movement toward regenerative agribusiness in a broad initiative led by Fundación Avina aimed at better understanding the movement’s needs and impacts. The evidence and learning it gathers is helping build a community of regenerative enterprises, investors and intermediaries and inform policy responses in support of these businesses.

One key player in the research initiative is NESsT, a global impact investment organization that supports social enterprises in emerging markets. NESsT has played a key role by helping businesses like COOPAFLORA grow through coaching in business planning, governance and impact measurement. The organization has also facilitated access to financial support, enabling these enterprises to expand and thrive.

As Cairo Milhomem Bastos, program manager at NESsT, explained, "Ancestral forest management practices are like a treasure trove with which traditional Amazon communities can demonstrate to the broader society that inclusive development — in harmony with nature and valuing the work of women — is viable.”

Seafood producers in Malaysia pilot promising farming systems

In the small fishing community of Kampung Telok, on the west coast of peninsular Malaysia, fishers are grappling with rising sea temperatures and water pollution. Unpredictable weather patterns have replaced the once-clear distinctions between the hot and rainy seasons. In 2024, harmful algae blooms appeared for the first time, releasing toxins into the water and threatening already stressed aquaculture farms. 

To build resilience in the food supply and for people at risk, the Kampung Telok fishers and farmers will help test an innovation in research led by Universiti Putra Malaysia. The pilot sites will integrate algae into the farming systems to address water contamination, improve productivity and control diseases naturally, reducing the need for antibiotics. This approach mimics natural ecosystems by farming multiple species — such as crab, mussels and algae — together. The waste produced by one species serves as nutrients for another, creating a more efficient farming system that is better for the environment. Not only does it improve farm health, but it also helps protect the local ecosystem by reducing pollution and enhancing sustainability.

The research is part of AQUADAPT, an initiative supported by the Government of Canada and IDRC  to support coastal communities in Southeast Asia and the Pacific region as they adapt to climate change by using innovative, nature-based solutions. 

"The pilot site could serve as an example to future sites in Malaysia and other Southeast Asian countries,” said Natrah Ikhsan, a professor in the Department of Aquaculture at Universiti Putra Malaysia who is behind this initiative.

A key component in this package of innovations is training in algae-based product development for women in the village. Women’s cooperatives are being established to help secure stable incomes and strengthen economic security in the face of climate change.

Aquaculture is the fastest-growing food sector globally and most of the aquatic food production is concentrated in Asia. If the Kampung Telok innovations prove effective, they can boost aquaculture’s contributions to food security and incomes without deepening climate change impacts, environmental degradation and social inequality.