February 20, 2025
ARTICLEThe literature review highlights how limited access to financing, market information, and extension services constrains smallholder farmers’ ability to adopt productivity-enhancing technologies. This finding aligns closely with the 2024 GAP Report’s call for innovative financing models and inclusive business approaches tailored to the realities of low- and middle-income countries.
For instance, the 2024 GAP Report features a case study from Heifer International’s AYuTe Africa Challenge, which provides cash grants and mentorship to promising agritech startups. The initiative’s support for Hello Tractor, a digital platform connecting farmers with tractor services, exemplifies how bundling financial and advisory services can accelerate the adoption of mechanization among smallholders.
The literature review’s analysis of persistent gender disparities in resource access, decision-making authority, and agricultural productivity underscores the urgent need for targeted interventions. It finds that women often lack control over key productive assets and have limited influence in household and community-level decision-making, constraining their ability to adopt improved practices and technologies. The review’s analysis of gender disparities in resource access and decision-making authority supports the 2024 GAP Report’s call for co-creation approaches that incorporate end users in the development and delivery of productivity-enhancing tools.
The 2024 GAP Report showcases ACDI/VOCA’s work in Honduras, where the Feed the Future FARMS Activity established women-led agroparks to provide access to land, innovative technologies, and markets for high-value crops. By bundling productive resources with capacity building, leadership training, and inclusive market linkages, the initiative demonstrates how to enhance women’s agency and decision-making power while boosting their participation in profitable agricultural activities.
The literature review finds that fragmented interventions often fail to achieve sustained productivity gains, validating the GAP Report’s focus on strategic partnerships and coordination. Successful cases examined in the review, where research institutions, private sector actors, and government agencies aligned their efforts, provide further evidence for the 2024 GAP Report’s recommendation to cultivate multi-stakeholder partnerships to create efficient bridges across the Valley of Death.
The 2024 GAP Report highlights the Nourishing Prosperity Alliance, a collaboration between Corteva Agriscience, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Land O’Lakes Venture37, and research institutes, to improve animal nutrition and incomes for women smallholder dairy farmers in East Africa. By bringing together diverse expertise and resources, the initiative demonstrates the power of partnerships in driving context-specific productivity solutions.
For policymakers, investors, and agricultural development practitioners, the literature review offers valuable insights to inform strategies for boosting sustainable productivity growth in developing regions. By examining the complex interplay of economic, social, and environmental factors shaping employment challenges, the review’s findings reinforce the 2024 GAP Report’s central argument that accelerating productivity gains requires bundling appropriate technologies, practices, and knowledge with targeted policy action and institutional mechanisms. As showcased in the 2024 GAP Report, this entails integrating productivity-enhancing innovations with efforts to expand market access, strengthen regional trade, reduce post-harvest losses, and foster inclusive and sustainable agricultural value chains.
In conclusion, the literature review’s comprehensive analysis of employment challenges in developing countries’ agrifood sectors provides robust empirical support for the 2024 GAP Report’s framework and recommendations. By highlighting synergies between the two publications, we aim to equip decision-makers with actionable insights to design and implement effective interventions that leave no farmer behind in the pursuit of sustainable agricultural productivity growth.