iDE's Farm Business Advisor (FBA) concept, winner of Nestle's inaugural Prize in Creating Shared Value for its initial implementation in Cambodia, has an important new partner in RLG International, a worldwide organization of performance improvement specialists based in Vancouver.

Farm Business Advisors are independent micro-entrepreneurs trained by iDE to encourage and equip farmers to grow market-oriented crops. FBAs analyze individual farm enterprises to identify opportunities, which are then matched with a range of products such as improved seed, fertilizer, irrigation equipment, pest control, and market information. They also provide advice to farmers to help them reduce risk, improve productivity, and increase income. iDE does not pay salaries to FBAs, instead providing services to them such as training, bulk purchasing power, credit access, market information, new product development, and promotion. FBAs earn their income from the embedded services they provide as commission on sales to their farmers.

RLG's five-year commitment will enable significant growth of the Farm Business Advisor program, bringing it for the first time to Africa. RLG's support will enable iDE Zambia to expand on the existing Rural Prosperity Initiative project by identifying, training, and assisting 200 Farm Business Advisors, who will be carefully selected and trained by iDE field officers to provide Zambian farmers with goods, services, and advice. Along with providing training for local FBAs, the new program will fund additional reporting on successes and challenges faced by Zambian FBAs and the farmers they serve in order to further improve and expand the FBA program.

A worldwide organization of performance improvement specialists that focuses on people, RLG will bring value to the project beyond funding. RLG is committed to applying its core expertise to bear on future strategic directions for the project in Zambia, allowing iDE to broaden its outlook and significantly increase its impact in the region.

The project is scheduled to run until January 2017 and is designed to reach farmers in the existing iDE project areas of Copperbelt, Lusaka, Southern, and Central Provinces.

In total, the RLG International grant is expected to enable iDE to reach a significant portion of the population in those four provinces, as FBAs are capable of assisting 16,000 small farms representing 96,000 Zambians.