Stories

Despite the lush greenery that surrounds Ngarpongtang village in Thangrong, Bhutan, until recently, it was impossible to grow vegetables there. “I used to have to go to other villages to exchange pinewood for vegetables,” says Wangdi, a 54-year-old farmer. “We couldn’t get vegetables to grow here.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us just how vulnerable agricultural value chains are to external shocks – and how much more we need to do to build the sector’s resilience.

In rural Pakistan, women are important partners in agricultural development. They perform a variety of crucial tasks, including weeding and tilling land, planting seeds, collecting farmyard manure and harvesting. They are also responsible for cleaning, drying and storing grains.

In north-eastern Brazil, as in so many other places, rural women's work is often invisible. But a revolution is taking place – and IFAD is a part of it.

Bees support countless ecosystems, bolster biodiversity, anchor food chains and help ensure humans’ agricultural security. Not bad for insects no bigger than a paperclip.

The COVID-19 outbreak has disrupted agricultural and food systems around the world, along with the livelihoods and food security of the poorest rural communities – precisely the groups of people whom IFAD concentrates its efforts on. 

Without initially knowing it, last year more than 13,000 young women in Colombia began to prepare for the current economic and social impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The story of the Afro-Colombian community has always been one of resilience. Historically, this group has faced the country’s highest rates of poverty and food insecurity, and has lacked access to many basic services.

Victoria Muteti, a 44-year old farmer living in Kenya’s Makueni County, has many reasons to be satisfied. In January 2020, she was able to harvest more than 2,500 kilograms of sorghum from her 2.5-acre farm – far more than the 1,000 kg she harvested in 2019.