Overcoming the Odds: 6 Challenges Farmers Face

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Helping farmers turn obstacles into opportunities is core to our mission at Heifer International. Here are six common challenges farmers face, and how we support them in finding the solutions they need to lead more resilient and dignified lives.?

1. Building Profitable Businesses

For farmers,?like Montoo Naik in India, the lack of opportunity forces many to migrate to cities in search of other forms of employment. Heifer supports farmers with the training and tools they need to keep their enterprises close to home.

During the pandemic, Montoo decided to return to his home village in Odisha state, where?Heifer trained him to start a poultry farm. Now, at the helm of a thriving business, he’s already earning nearly 20% more than he did as a migrant worker.

2. Improving Animal Well-being

Limited access to veterinary services, such as vaccinations and medications, holds many farming families back from reaping the potential benefits of small livestock.

Through online training, Heifer is helping women become community vets,?like Kusu Maya Malla, a mother of three living in central Nepal. Kusu took the 35-day online course to become certified as an animal health service provider, and she now helps over 600 local farmers keep their animals healthy and their livelihoods’ safe.

3. Protecting the Environment

As the climate changes and becomes increasingly unpredictable, so do farmers’ chances of growing a healthy crop.

On the Galápagos Islands,?Heifer is helping?farmers feed their communities without harming the environment, by building greenhouses. These climate-controlled spaces allow farmers to grow food year-round, cutting back on the region’s over-reliance on imported food.

4. Finding Secure?Employment

Finding secure and meaningful work opportunities isn’t easy,?especially for youth?living in rural areas where most jobs revolve around agriculture.

Around the world, Heifer’s support connects young people like Jeanne d’Arc Musanganyimana to cooperatives and job opportunities. A young mother living in Rwanda,?Jeanne turned her life around?when she was hired as an accountant?by an agrovet company started by Heifer-trained veterinary workers.

5. Accessing Financial Tools

For many smallholder farmers, financial skills and resources are out of reach. To address the gaps, Heifer supports farmer-run savings and credit cooperatives to connect farmers to the tools they need to realize a stronger financial future.

In Kenya, for example,?Heifer supported?Victorine and the savings and credit cooperative?she runs to expand into the poultry business and broaden its scope of services to local poultry farmers. The group offers loans to members at reasonable rates and provides financial literacy, savings and finance management training.

6. Sourcing Water for Irrigation?

As droughts and delayed rains become increasingly common, the consequences for food producers are huge: without rain, production drops, prices rise and farmers struggle to make?a Sustainable Living Income.

In Nepal, Heifer is installing wells to build farmers’ resilience and bring water to the waterless. For?Tara?Devi Mahato, a vegetable farmer, the?well now provides water year-round, allowing her to lead a more resilient, dignified life.

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