Agriculture for Entrepreneurs

Big businesses often overlook smallholder farmers, assuming they’re too hard to reach or not worth the investment. For more than 40 years, iDE has proven otherwise, showing that with the right tools, market access, and support, any farm can thrive. And with women making up 43% of the global agricultural workforce and nearly half of smallholder farmers in many regions, expanding access isn’t just smart economics, it’s a matter of equity and opportunity.

On average, the farmers we work with see an annual income gain of 30-50%, and for our donors, we promise a minimum cost-effectiveness ratio of 10:1. That means that every dollar invested in iDE results in at least an additional $10 of annual income for a farmer. We are able to do this through innovative programs that create cadres of microentrepreneurs, support small businesses, and build resilient markets that support their sales sustainably, helping to prevent farmers from sliding back into extreme poverty.

And for iDE it’s not just about dropping off a water pump or an irrigation system, we understand that farmers need a combination of technology with the services that complement it: knowledge, credit, inputs, and markets where they can find steady paying customers.

It’s not just about dropping off a water pump or an irrigation system. Technology won’t work in a vacuum. Farmers need a combination of technology with the services that complement it: knowledge, credit, inputs, and markets where they can find steady paying customers.

We strive for a continuous positive feedback loop by combining user insights, product innovation, and business model design all in one intervention model that’s not supported separately, but all at once. This gives us the ability to spot business opportunities at different layers of the value chain. It takes this kind of holistic approach, and a business mindset, to establish a self-sustaining market for poor farmers.

We work closely with local entrepreneurs, or help locals establish new businesses if there are none present, to manufacture, supply, and service the equipment farmers need. Big businesses don’t want to sell door-to-door or collect smallholder harvests, but we can. Through collection centers and our last mile Farm Business Advisor networks, we create the aggregation necessary for these rural farmers to be a feasible and attractive market.

Our Farm Business Advisors can reach remote farmers and provide them access to the things they want: better seeds, effective pest control, fertilizers, improved soil, and labor- and money-saving technologies such as solar pumps and micro-irrigation. They also learn about efficient agricultural practices as well as business skills such as crop diversity, planting tactics, water storage, postharvest storage, and market strategies. We teach farmers to form collectives that increase their purchasing power and attract buyers in order to obtain economies of scale (e.g., for things like transport). The collectives coordinate who is producing what commodity, so that everyone doesn’t produce the same thing at the same time, driving down prices.

How iDE is Implementing Regenerative Agriculture  

By centering soil health as a core business asset, iDE deploys regenerative farming systems that actively restore biodiversity, recharge depleted watersheds, and optimize ecosystem services to build long-term climate resilience. These practices put soil life at the center of the farming system, capturing carbon in the soil and promoting above-ground biomass. At the same time, regenerative agriculture offers increased yields for customers, boosting income streams for farming and helping communities thrive. By integrating climate-adaptive farm designs with market-led restoration and end-to-end value chain efficiency, iDE transforms every acre into a thriving, multi-income ecosystem for iDE customers, where protecting biodiversity and soil health is a profitable business advantage for rural entrepreneurs.

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Agriculture Publications

Check out these publications from our work in Agriculture.