This project has developed a range of social innovations that are critical to addressing some entrenched challenges that prevent smallholder farmers from investing in sustainable land management practices. These innovations address, among other systemic issues: insecure access to land for women and young people; informal, and unpredictable, land-leasing arrangements; limited farmer-to-farmer knowledge transfer; and agricultural extension services that are not geared to the needs of poor and marginalized farmers.

Together with our partners in Benin, Burkina Faso, and Kenya, we facilitate participatory processes to develop practical solutions to these problems. We pay particular attention to those left out of mainstream planning processes with the aim of practical, context-specific solutions that are led by the most affected groups.

In western Kenya, working with the grassroots women’s organization, Shibuye Community Health Workers, we pioneered a process for establishing land lease guidelines, enabling women, and young people, to secure a livelihood from farming. In Burkina Faso, with Groupe de Recherche et d’Action sur le Foncier, we introduced a process of negotiated land rights transfer to improve women’s tenure situation within family farms. In northern Benin, TMG and our partners developed the community-led, 'Tem Sesiabun Gorado' model. The aim is to improve existing farmer-to-farmer extension strategies through a scalable model for catalyzing the diffusion of knowledge and practices on sustainable land management.