Following a competitive process, in December 2020, PxD in consortium with RARE and The Nature Conservancy received a one-year grant from UK PACT to support a project focused on sustainable agriculture and behavioral change.

Our collaboration with Rare was one of only fourteen selected by UK Pact for support, and one of only three in the land-use sector. Our proposal was recognized as bringing an innovative approach to the delivery of technical assistance and lays a foundation for shifting practices to safeguard long-term productivity and resilience, while concurrently delivering on carbon mitigation potential across communities and landscapes. The project is PxD’s first to break ground in Latin America.

PxD will lead implementation of a two-way advisory service to provide recommendations to farmers via their mobile phones (SMS-based). PxD will be responsible for monitoring of the intervention through surveys and analysis of engagement data and for testing and iterating product and service delivery.  

The project will provide mobile-based technical assistance to 2,250 farmers in 2021. From among the total sample of beneficiaries, the team has identified 250 “farmer innovators” to receive in-person, dedicated support to build and augment their leadership skills as innovators. These farmer innovators will reinforce good practices in their communities and anchor a permanent shift to more sustainable practices.

The project was a finalist for the 2020 Food Planet Prize and has again been shortlisted for consideration in 2021.