With Qudra 2’s support, Adana Metropolitan Municipality is countering the pressures of rapidly increasing food and agricultural production prices by strengthening the resilience of smallholder farmers and vulnerable households.
The project aims to support farmers to increase productivity while supporting the most vulnerable households to overcome food insecurity by providing food vouchers.
Smallholder farmers’ productivity is increased through guaranteed contracts, increased production, improved post-harvest management of crops (e.g. appropriate storage), market access and resilience for identified food chains. The project will be carried out in cooperation with the Meryem Women’s Cooperative, supported by the municipality.
Thirty vulnerable smallholder farmers who were selected for the project will sign contracts with the Meryem Women’s cooperative. The municipality will provide these farmers with seeds, organic compost, and technical advice. The cooperative will receive training on food sanitation, packaging and processing techniques. The cooperative will buy the identified farmers’ produce and sell it to the market using its established network. The profits from the sales will be used to procure “market cards” for vulnerable households. These are vouchers for families to buy food and essential products from local markets. 300 households will be assessed concerning their food insecurity. Twenty food-insecure and vulnerable households will benefit from food market cards. Host communities and refugees will benefit equally from the measure.