Tevel is developing a Sustainable Agriculture Innovation Center in Zambia, with the goal of improving productivity for smallholder farmers in rural communities. The Center will be based around an educational farm that will train community members on sustainable agriculture
practices and entrepreneurship. Additionally, the center will include an R&D facility that will research and showcase technological innovations by Israeli companies designed to benefit rural communities.
The project is designed to facilitate collaboration between various stakeholders focused on developing effective solutions for smallholder farmers, who are a crucial demographic in
emerging economies and extremely vulnerable to environmental and economic changes.
Within this project we will be connecting local government and civil society, academia, the Israeli AgroTech ecosystem, the local private sector and most importantly – rural
communities of smallholders themselves.
Tevel’s service learning program will take a central part of both the educational farm and the R&D capacity. The program, which has already mobilized and trained over 1300 young
Jewish leaders and activists, will provide added value to the center by enhancing its visibility and capacity while introducing young people into the complex challenges facing developing countries.
The end beneficiaries of the program are smallholder farmers, who need help in adapting their practices to growing challenges, to live with security and dignity. All activities in the
center will be ultimately focused on impact for these communities. However, the project will also provide training opportunities for aspiring practitioners, as well as being a center for
research on best practices for Agriculture Based Community Development.
We have already begun to connect several exceptional partners from Israel and Zambia, that together can create excellent value for rural farmers and increase Israeli involvement in
creating sustainable change in Zambia. As we establish a presence in the field and
ecosystem we will also develop new partnerships with academia and the private sector
outside of Israel. We are very excited about this project, as it will serve as a focal point for our work in Africa for the coming years.