Market Gardening Development Support Project

The Market Gardening Development Support Project aims to improve food and nutrition security and reduce rural poverty in 44 municipalities of seven departments of the southern Benin: Atlantic, Couffo, Littoral, Mono, Plateau and Zou. In addition, it will boost the incomes of vegetables producers, while strengthening their resilience to the effects of climate change.

The project will build the capacity of all the actors involved in market gardening value chains. It will also support the development of price and market vegetable information systems, the development of extension services and create jobs for the young people. Furthermore, the project will support the construction and restoration of infrastructure for regrouping, packaging and temporary storage facilities of gardening inputs and produce. More than 120 km of rural roads will be repaired to facilitate access to production zones.

The project through the contribution of IFAD's complementary grant under the Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme (ASAP) will promote adoption of technologies and techniques to improve the productivity of vegetable producers and build their resilience to the impact of climate change.

The project will reach out to and benefit 17,000 producers' households cultivating small plots of 1/8 hectare, particularly young people and women. It will also create 3,000 new jobs along the horticulture value chains.

Source: IFAD