Life Vision educates and empowers smallholder female farmers across Upper Egypt with the skills and opportunities they need to improve their yields and families’ livelihoods.

The Challenge

Agricultural mechanisation in Egypt is destroying the livelihoods of smallholder farmers. As the struggle to make a living from traditional farming methods worsen, 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 is a social enterprise that 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 its 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 to 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.

Joining the Alfanar family was one of the best things that ever happened to Life Vision.

Mona Wissa, Life Vision CEO

What has been Achieved with Alfanar's Support

Life Vision has 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 has 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.

In addition to supporting LV develop its farmer training programmes, Alfanar has helped to develop a three-year business plan and has provided seed capital to establish Life Vision's revenue-generating ‘Centre of Excellence’ farm in Minya. Established in 2019, the aim is to generate enough income to begin to cover the costs of their Farmer Field School and Farmer Business School programmes, helping them scale throughout Egypt.

Alfanar's Support: Looking Ahead

Alfanar’s support with Life Vision focuses on assisting them 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 focused on refining the existing Monitoring and Evaluation system.

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