Introducing Grow Ahead: Connecting People to Small Farmers for Farmer Resiliency

By Nick | April 7, 2017

Despite the growing threats such as unfair trade agreements and volatile market prices, climate change, land grabs, and the rise of industrial agriculture, small farmers continue to feed the world on just a quarter of all farmland. They’re also our greatest allies in the climate crisis— small scale farmers could sequester more than 100% of current annual CO2 emissions with a switch to widely available and inexpensive regenerative agro-ecological land management practices.

To successfully cool the planet and feed the world, small-scale farmers need our support. ‘Grow Ahead’ is an online lending and funding program that connects individuals and organizations directly to family farmer organizations in the developing world who are historically under-resourced, with limited access to the capital needed to grow their organizations beyond their day-to-day needs.

By lending through and contributing through Grow Ahead, consumers and organizations can help support the agroecological solutions and farmer-led trainings that have a proven track record of success and ultimately build the resiliency of farming communities around the world.

Here are 3 ways you can get involved:

  1. Lend for farmer-developed resiliency projects, such as soil conservation and yield-boosting compost operations: (link)
  2. Donate to support regional farmer-to-farmer exchanges. These exchanges will facilitate farm leaders’ ability to share successes and resources. They will also produce written and multimedia resources, encapsulating farmer experiences and “takeaways” to share with other farmers. (link)
  3. Donate to support farm leader “multiplier” agroecology scholarships. Grow Ahead is raising funds earmarked specifically to provide scholarships for farm leaders and trainers to attend farmer-centric agroecology schools. (link)
Together, we can cool the planet and feed the world!