Farmers’ voices: the missing link in the quest for agricultural transformation 

Lead the agriculture transformation through farmer co-creation  

Did you know that 80% of the global food is produced by smallholder farmers?

More than 80% (475 million) of farms operate on approximately two hectares. Although these farms account for 12% of the world’s farmland, they provide 80% of the food. Smallholders walk a challenging path: produce more food facing many systemic challenges; all of this on degraded land, whilst reducing emissions. How do we close the yield gap, providing more food from less whilst we decarbonize agriculture?

That is the key question we can only solve if we co-create solutions with the smallholder farmers. The solution is not found in our conference rooms nor in incubators. The solution is found on the ground, working with the farmers who already have all the answers – they just need to be enabled by technology, financing, and education.  

In her talk, Erika will talk about real-life and field examples of how co-creation with smallholder farmers has led to groundbreaking product, service, and business model innovations. Erika will also share an award-winning process with you to lead the co-creation. 

Let Erika inspire you to incorporate farmers’ voices into your strategy toward agriculture transformation.  

Erika is a purpose-driven thought leader in agriculture, ex-corporate marketeer, entrepreneur, and consultant. With over 20 years of experience in agriculture, she has worked in corporates, NGOs, governments, consultancy, and start-ups. Erika holds an MBA (Netherlands) and an MPA from Harvard University.

Erika has worked across Europe, Africa, and APAC developing and implementing impactful projects in climate-smart agriculture. 

Mid- 2021, Erika founded The Sustainable Smallholder consultancy studio offering services to the private sector, social enterprises, and start-ups to help transition to sustainable, profitable, innovative agriculture models. Erika also serves on the Board of Advisors for many other social enterprise start-ups that bring regenerative agriculture to smallholder farmers across ASEAN, India, and Sub-Saharan Africa. 

Prior to this, Erika leads the rice business at Corteva Agriscience; she has worked in different capacities for IFAD (Ethiopia), Agricultural Transformation Agency (Ethiopia), Dalberg (India), and Syngenta (USA, Switzerland, Singapore, Indonesia).