Poverty reduction and economic growth can only occur when nutritious food is widely accessible and the livelihoods of the rural poor are broad-based, so people can lead healthy, stable, and productive lives. To promote food security, International Resources Group (IRG) works with governments, local communities, NGOs, and multilateral organizations to improve the efficiency and added value of food transformation processes while promoting governance frameworks that strengthen decision-making roles for local organizations.

Our program intervenes at every step of the food transformation process “from seed to supermarket” to increase food production, stabilize food prices, and improve physical and economic access to nutritious food.  Our interventions are driven and guided by those market incentives that are necessary to sustained growth of food transformation systems.  In doing so, we maintain a particular focus on creating economic opportunity for small-scale farmers and marginalized urban and rural households.  In order to support the food transformation process, we help build producer and trader associations, develop agricultural training centers and programs, strengthen quality control standards, improve logistics, and support policy and outreach of local and national governments.

IRG works with communities to build resilience not just in agriculture, but with complementary support to fisheries, and forest and wetland management. We recognize and understand the risks of climate variability on staple food production and prices, especially those that occur through increasingly frequent weather events and increases in temperatures.

Capabilities:

• Agricultural value chain development
• Rural and urban agriculture management and ecosystem services
• Communication and behavior change campaigns
• Food policy development and support
• Property rights access and management

Select projects include:

Scaling Up Priority Staple Foods
This five-year $48 million food security Task Order under USAID/Senegal’s Economic Growth Program targets three high priority staple foods – rice, maize, and millet – that are being taken to scale through a combination of value chain interventions targeting quality control improvements, logistics enhancements, seed quality improvements, and contracting along value chains, along with supporting initiatives in the policy framework, capacity development, and capital access. This program was the first USAID Feed the Future program in Africa to implement field interventions, starting in the 2009/10 cropping season. Senegal: Support for Accelerated Growth and Increased Competitiveness for Trade (SAGIC)

Promoting Exports through Value Chain Interventions
Since 2006, IRG has led the design and implementation of agricultural value chain interventions in support of niche agricultural products with high export potential, including sesame, cashew, mango, bissap, banana, and others.  These interventions have led to demonstrated and measurable success and lessons learned in agricultural export diversification and the engagement of small and medium entrepreneurs. Senegal: Support for Accelerated Growth and Increased Competitiveness for Trade (SAGIC)

Extending Participation in and Improving Agriculture Inputs
IRG is working to improve crop production inputs in the Litani River Basin in Lebanon. IRG has performed a needs assessment of existing agriculture production practices to identify improvements. Meetings and production assessments with farmers' groups of current and potential water users associations will be used to select pilot demonstration areas that reflect best local agronomic conditions, irrigation command areas, and grower needs. Based on these findings, IRG will help users in the pilot area develop an equitable and enforceable irrigation water distribution program, which also offers new irrigation technology designed to meet the area’s irrigation needs. Besides improving irrigation equity, IRG is also working to guide the efficient use of chemical and irrigation practices. To support these agriculture improvements, the IRG project is increasing credit availability; identifying possible actions of the Litani River Authority that could reduce or eliminate supply chain impediments; and examining regional, national, and local markets of local agricultural products for export. Lebanon: Litani River Basin Management Support Project

Improving Farmers' Access to Forest Resources
IRG led a country-wide effort to improve Madagascar’s forest management through ensuring that neighboring farm households can obtain an income stream from sustained off take from neighboring forest lands. Management plans for forests included formal co-management agreements by which communities, working with the government, could extract resources under fixed and monitored rules. Madagascar Income Security for Farmers through Complementary Forest Income (SEFEM)

Increasing Incomes through Greater Accessibility and Access to Resources
In this five-year, $22 million program in Senegal, IRG works directly with women and communities to ensure increased and sustained agricultural income from common property forests, wetlands, and agriculture. Targeted at smallholder households, Wula Nafaa has sustainably increased income and volume from production of key staple crops and livestock products, improved water management systems, and improved land use measures and biodiversity conservation. Agricultural and forest value chains have included shea butter, Arabic gum, and baobab fruit, while more recent efforts have targeted lowland rice production by women’s groups in particular. The project improves livelihoods and value chain governance and ensures nature, wealth, and power complementarity in value chain interventions. Wula Nafaa works directly with stakeholders, including women’s and producer organizations, and water user, trade and business associations. Senegal: Wula Nafaa Program

Strengthening the Livelihoods of Poor Rural Communities
In Bangladesh, IRG works with rural communities throughout the country to improve value chain management and sustained income opportunities from fisheries, agro-forestry, and other value chains that complement conservation of critical forest and wetland resources. IRG’s interventions provide not only income increases, but also deliberately and tangibly strengthen the rights of participating communities over those resources so that they can ensure sustained income well beyond project life. Bangladesh: Integrated Protected Areas Management

Leading Research and Analysis Activities and Resource Management Issues
IRG led a series of analyses and reviews for USAID, in collaboration with World Resources Institute and Cornell University, leading to the “Nature, Wealth and Power” framework documents. IRG continues to implement programs using this holistic approach incorporating livelihood interventions, natural resources and empowerment. IRG has led a number of other ground-breaking studies in recent years linking agriculture to the needs for climate change adaptation.  Some of the better known are the Nature, Wealth, and Power framework and the Asia-Pacific Climate Change Adaptation Assessment