Life Vision is helping women farmers in Minya improve their yields and income - and building their resilience to life's challenges.

The Challenge

Agricultural mechanisation in Egypt is destroying the livelihoods of smallholder farmers. As the struggle to make a living from traditional farming methods becomes ever harder, the exodus to the cities is leaving vast tracts of land untended and plunging more rural communities further into poverty. Female smallholders and heads of household are disproportionately impacted by this, and require support and training to allow them to escape the cycle of poverty.

The Organisation 

Life Vision seeks to make smallholder farming more economically viable for poor farmers, by providing them with the skills and opportunities to refine their practices. Taking a holistic approach to development, it provides a risk-free environment through their centre for excellence, “The Oasis”. This location provides women farmers an opportunity to experiment with new agricultural methods and helps provide the training and experience to allow them switch to higher-return crops, thereby boosting incomes. Furthermore, Life Vision also provides training in essential life skills for women, building their resilience to life’s challenges, as well as running a range of other programmes to help smallholders generate increased profits.

Ever since attending the farmer field school, I have learned farming techniques that helped me double my production and the income I bring to my family. I was actually doing things wrong before. And now I no longer spend money on chemical pesticides because Life Vision has taught me how to compost. This organisation has been a blessing to me and my family.

Mona, Life Vision farmer

What has been Achieved with Alfanar's Support

Life Vision have undertaken a wide range of changes and new programmes with the assistance of Alfanar. This includes developing a closer relationship with the Ministry of Agriculture to allow for the replication of the Farmer Field School model in order to scale the programme, and implement it in other locations. Alongside this, Life Vision have been able to launch Farmer Business Schools to work with female entrepreneurs to find ways to improve the profitability of their businesses and develop successful microenterprises.

Alfanar has also supported Life Vision in testing a proposed idea to develop a soy-bean pressing facility. This was trialled and demonstrated to be profitable, as well as teaching Life Vision and their staff a number of useful lessons related to the development of income streams for their social enterprise. These lessons have allowed them to revisit the type of business they want to build to support their social impact arm.

Alfanar's Investment: Looking Ahead

Alfanar’s goals in the investment with Life Vision remain focussed on assisting Life Vision to develop more income streams to support the Farmer Field Schools and Farmer Business Schools. Alfanar’s management support remains an ongoing part of the investment, and is now focussed on refining the existing Monitoring and Evaluation system.