Supporting Maize Farmer Cooperatives

Aiming to increase smallholder farmers’ access to sustainable markets in Ethiopia, TechnoServe implemented the World Food Program’s Purchase for Progress (WFP-P4P) project by providing support to 16 farmer-owned cooperative unions.

Aiming to increase smallholder farmers’ access to sustainable markets in Ethiopia, TechnoServe implemented the World Food Program’s Purchase for Progress (WFP-P4P) project between 2013 and 2015. In partnership with the Maize Alliance we supported 16 farmer-owned cooperative unions (representing 333,000 farmers) by providing training on post-harvest handling, quality management, good governance and leadership, financial management, and business planning. Through targeted support, the project helped the cooperatives deliver on contract agreements for P4P. In the 2014-2015 season, they delivered 13,200 metric tons of maize, 100 percent of which met quality standards.