Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Explore the impact and stories from a groundbreaking eight-year project that benefited more than a quarter-million coffee farmers in East Africa.

When Tarciana Ciokinyua began receiving training from TechnoServe’s Coffee Initiative, she was able to invest her increased income in her family.

Women maize farmers in India are benefiting from technology-enabled market systems.

In partnership with the Gates Foundation, TechnoServe has helped thousands of East Africa’s smallholder farmers enter the supply chain for specialty coffee and earn higher incomes.

Project Nurture aims to help more than 50,000 small-scale fruit farmers double their fruit incomes, helping to prove that smallholder farmers can generate meaningful income through fruit production and be competitive suppliers in a market system.

Byagatonda Emmanuel and his wife Murerehe Speciose live in a prime coffee-producing area in Rwanda, but for years they produced low-quality coffee in small quantities.

Sam Koole, chairman of the Kainja Mango Farmers Association, remembers a time only a few years ago when the fruit from the Sena, a variety of mango native to eastern Uganda, was left to rot on the ground. Since launching Project Nurture in 2010, local farmers are no longer taking the Sena for granted.

Even in the poorest of countries, business opportunities exist. People have demand for goods and services, and they have the potential to supply them. All too often, though, markets in these countries fail.