Giving Compass' Take:

• Kai Carter discusses the Agriculture, Livelihoods, and Conservation strategy of investing in local leaders for a sustainable future.

• How is the ALC strategy combining the needs of the people with the need for conservation?

• Learn about building a sustainable business and farming model.

Smallholder farmers and forest-dependent communities have the power to protect the planet’s resources while also contributing to sustainable rural development. Our new Agriculture, Livelihoods, and Conservation (ALC) strategy (2020-2024) invests in this by supporting organizations and leaders working on sustainable agricultural livelihoods and conservation in tropical forest areas.

The ALC strategy emerged from a four-year exploration of opportunities related to food and agriculture that extended beyond the Foundation’s existing climate grant-making, including nutrition, food waste, and global supply chains. We initiated grant-making in geographies that already played an important role in our Foundation’s investments: Ethiopia, Indonesia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

When the Foundation launched the pilot in 2017, we knew that as agriculture develops and expands, it is sometimes at the cost of natural resources like forests. The partners that we supported provided evidence that sustainable smallholder agriculture paired with conservation initiatives with strong community engagement can curb deforestation and maintain biodiversity.

As we continued to support smallholder farmers and rural communities, it became clear that women, Indigenous communities, and young people were crucial to the success of our interventions.

Read the full article about reflecting on the journey through agriculture, livelihoods, and conservation by Kai Carter at The David and Lucile Packard Foundation.