Sustainable Transformation for Agricultural Resilience in Upper Egypt (STAR) project aims to improve living standards of smallholder farmers and poor and vulnerable women and youth in the rural areas in Upper Egypt. The target households will develop resilience to future water scarcity and climate risks by increasingly adopting efficient production and irrigation technologies, improving the quality and productivity of their produce, enhancing their profitability through better market linkages and diversifying their income through a range of microenterprises. The target area has been identified based on its high poverty and food insecurity level.
STAR has three main components:
Component 1: Strengthening rural institutions, enterprises and markets. It aims at increasing the marketing of healthy and nutritious produce and profitability of target households’ by strengthening their community institutions and microenterprises and linking these institutions to domestic and export markets.
Component 2: Improvements of smallholders’ productivity and resilience. It aims at improving the resilience of smallholder crop producers by: 1) securing their access to water resources and active participation in Water Users Associations; 2) enhancing the efficiency and sustainability of their use of soil and water resources, and lower production costs; and 3) ensuring compliance with market standards including good agricultural practices and safe pesticide residue free food.
Component 3: Program management and policy engagement.
