Regional Funds
The Agroecology Fund, through seeding decentralized regional agroecology funds, seeks to galvanize commitments to agroecology (AE) as a critical solution to climate change and hunger.
Despite growing interest in AE, there continues to be dramatic under-investment in grassroots organizations, movements and related small businesses. This territorially-based approach is the key to scaling agroecology that will transform global food systems.
We provide strategic and administrative support to a growing network of affiliated regional funds, closely aligned with Agroecology Fund principles and procedures. Regional funds give bilateral and multilateral agencies, as well as private philanthropists, an opportunity to support hard-to-reach grassroots work and to jointly fund inclusive and rights-based initiatives rooted in agroecology principles that support impacts as diverse as food security, food sovereignty, biodiversity conservation, and climate resilience.
The unique value proposition of the regional funds is their participatory approach to grantmaking and knowledge creation, based on the Agroecology Fund’s approach globally. Each fund acts as the facilitator of a learning community through which their grantees can share strategies, as well as document and present the impacts of their work on the ground, thus contributing to a global body of evidence for agroecology. The Agroecology Fund provides the mycelial network from which the diverse regional funds can learn and grow together. The Agroecology Fund provides the mycelial network from which the diverse regional funds can learn and grow together.
Fondo Agroecológico para la Península de Yucatán – FAPY
Fondo Agroecológico para la Península de Yucatán – FAPY (Agroecology Fund for the Yucatán Peninsula) was the first regional agroecology fund established by the Agroecology Fund in 2020 with the financial support of the Kellogg Foundation and other donors.
FAPY is operated by the Agroecology Fund’s local partner, the Túumben K’óoben Cooperative who has a long and reliable track record working with Mayan communities in the Yucatán Peninsula. This strategic positioning enables it to identify the needs of local organizations and communities, including: strengthening agroecological production processes, building solidarity markets, enhancing community organization, reinforcing networks, and managing spaces with relevant stakeholders.
Find out more about Fondo Agroecológico para la Península de Yucatán – FAPY
Bharat Agroecology Fund (BAF)
Bharat Agroecology Fund (BAF) is the regional Agroecology Fund in India. Established in 2022, BAF encourages a paradigm shift at the local and national level in how food is produced and consumed. The fund aims to contribute to collective efforts for 20% of small and marginal farmers (approximately 20 million people) to shift towards agroecology-based agriculture ecosystems by 2030. This is the tipping point that will transform India’s entire food system.
While supporting grassroots movements to transform food systems through agroecology, BAF’s complementary objectives include catalyzing Indian philanthropy, collaborating with government agencies to move public money into natural farming, and sharing lessons learned with other regional movements, and the world.
BAF is hosted by our partner, Bharathiya Vikas Trust (BVT). Find out more about Bharat Agroecology Fund.
Regional Agroecology Fund in Eastern and West Africa
The Regional Agroecology Funds in Eastern and West Africa are a financing and learning tool to support agroecology networks and organizations across the regions, which form the core of these two region’s agroecology movement.
The purpose of these funds is to:
• Offer donors a simple way to fund grassroots organizations, networks, and emerging enterprises that are critical to scaling agroecology up and out across Eastern Africa.
• Ensure that organizations representing Indigenous Peoples, women, and youth receive the support they need to advance agroecology and uphold their rights.
• Support grantee organizations in monitoring their progress against sought outcomes.
• Contribute to regional learning, and to knowledge generation and exchanges, to deepen grassroots evidence for agroecology, and to adjust and improve strategies for scaling up agroecology.
In Eastern and West Africa, agroecology has become a vast movement, growing on the evidence that the Green Revolution for Africa, with its heavily funded promotion of commercial seeds and synthetic fertilizers, has failed to help Africa’s families and its smallholder farmers flourish. Poverty, malnutrition and soil degradation continue to plague the region. And yet there exist rich local knowledge and millenia-old practices that are now serving as the foundation of an agroecological renaissance in both regions.
These regional funds are in their incubation stage. Please reach out to Daniel Moss, Co-Director at daniel@agroecologyfund.org if you’re interested in becoming a donor of these funds or to learn more.
