News & blogs

What is the evidence for the development impact of concessional finance to agri-business?

Concessional finance has become an increasingly important tool in enterprise development over the last decade, and there has been a huge...

26/10/2020

Start-ups ring the changes in farming phone-tech

Demand for phone-based agricultural services has shot up almost 60 per cent across Asia and Africa this year, but many services struggle to...

20/10/2020

Deployment of ICTs for SME agribusinesses and farmers

As part of our work to support small and medium sized agribusinesses and farmers, CASA country interventions have put plans in place to...

14/10/2020

Takeaways from the CASA Smallholder Investor Summit

CASA hosted three panels alongside the Deal Room at the Africa Green Revolution Forum. Each panel featured the launch of a new Evidence...

21/09/2020

CASA research launched at AGRF Deal Room

CASA will host its first Global Agribusiness Investor Summit at this year’s African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) Virtual Summit which...

07/09/2020

Female African farmer looks at a tablet computer

A Review of Inclusive Technical Assistance in Agriculture Deployed by Development Finance Institutions

In recent years, there has been growing interest and funding dedicated to technical assistance (TA) designed to strengthen the commercial...

07/08/2020

The impact of COVID-19 on agricultural markets in Uganda

The COVID-19 pandemic and associated control measures have had far-reaching effects on societies worldwide, on the global economy and on...

17/07/2020

Meat, Milk and More: How Africa’s livestock production can be commercialized to meet growing demand

Prolonged economic growth, a growing population, urbanization and shifting dietary patterns in Africa have sparked demand for more...

15/07/2020

Mainstreaming cross-cutting issues in CASA interventions

The CASA programme strives to mainstream four cross-cutting areas – gender, nutrition, climate change and animal welfare – in all...

08/07/2020

CASA Programme Approach: Blending Market Systems and Investment Promotion

Is the CASA programme a Market Systems Development (MSD) programme or an investment initiative? During one of CASA’s adaptive management...

18/06/2020

Rethinking Agri-Business Investments Through the Pandemic wrap-up take-aways

“Rethinking Agri-Business Investments Through the Pandemic”, a series of virtual convenings unpacking the response to COVID-19 for...

05/06/2020

The impact of COVID-19 on agricultural markets in Nepal

In late April 2020, CASA worked with key market actors to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the functioning of agricultural...

04/06/2020

Rethinking Agri-Business Investments Through the Pandemic: Futures Panel summary

Looking to the future is not easy under current circumstances. We don’t currently even know where we will be able to go and who we...

01/06/2020

CASA’s COVID-19 Response

All of CASA’s implementing teams are adapting their activities to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. CASA works with smallholders and...

28/05/2020

Rethinking Agri-Business Investments Through the Pandemic: Support Panel summary

Whilst a pandemic of this scale has not been seen in recent decades, the pressure points it is creating for agribusinesses are not new...

26/05/2020

Rethinking Agribusiness Investments Through the Pandemic: Sustainability Platform Summary

COVID-19 has exposed our vulnerabilities in both health and economic terms and made us all feel less safe. For many people, this is...

19/05/2020

Rethinking Agri-Business Investments Through the Pandemic: Impact Platform summary

Across the world, lives have changed dramatically in the last few months. We have all been affected in some way by the tragic deaths...

07/05/2020

The COVID19 pandemic – a double edged sword for agri-SMEs in Africa and Southeast Asia

Something as small as a virus has managed to achieve the almost impossible: to put our globalised world on hold. Each of us now wonder:...

24/04/2020

Growth in The Time of COVID

How do you start off a development programme during COVID? Just as the CASA programme was set to roll out a barrage of partnerships with...

16/04/2020

CASA programme launched in Uganda

“The Ugandan government is determined to carry out a nationwide farmer’s census as a deliberate strategy to help them shift from the...

26/03/2020

How The Full Spectrum of Capital Can Enable Inclusive Growth in Agriculture

While the world has made huge economic gains over the past 50 years, this progress has been highly uneven. This is particularly acute in...

12/02/2020

Are you an economics or investment researcher? Join our team!

We are seeking the services of professional experts to be engaged on a call down basis to undertake research in response to the questions....

31/01/2020

Farmers face up to climate risks in south Asia

Small-scale farmers in India and Nepal ‘most vulnerable’ to climate change and while technologies to improve resilience are available,...

27/01/2020

Tech savvy community volunteer teaches a farmer to diagnose pests using a smartphone application in Nepal.

Q&A: Digital tech is like eBay or Amazon for smallholders

Digital solutions for smallholders risk failure unless ‘human-centred’ but technology can ‘de-risk’ commercial investment in...

20/01/2020

What are the opportunities, challenges and evidence needs for investing in smallholder farming?

Let’s say that investing in agriculture and particularly in agribusinesses that source from smallholder farmers is not a walk in the...

04/12/2019

Microloans make farming profitable for Kenyan smallholders

Farmers in Kenya report increased yields after signing up to microloan scheme but more investment is essential to help small-scale farmers...

02/12/2019

Two tractors with Raised Bed Machine attachments

Egypt’s small-scale farmers buoyed by technology investment

New agricultural equipment increases yields by up to 20 per cent, and smallholders in Egypt have received incentives to use the technology,...

06/11/2019

Nigerian farmers embrace technology to combat food insecurity

With food insecurity on the rise in Nigeria, smallholder farmers are turning to new technologies to improve food...

17/10/2019

Coordinated investment key to agri-tech in Africa

Africa’s agri-tech industry is booming, but for smallholder farmers to profit, investment is vital, writes Laura Owings for SciDev.Net....

21/09/2019