TechnoServe, a U.S.-based nonprofit that works with entrepreneurs in poor areas of the developing world to build businesses that create income, has announced a four-year, $8 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to increase the income of small-scale farmers in southern Africa through the development of a local soy industry.

Awarded through the foundation's Agricultural Development initiative, the grant will be used to boost farmer incomes in Mozambique and Zambia, where TechnoServe is working to expand soy production by smallholder farmers and connect them to buyers for their crops. TechnoServe, in partnership with public and private agencies and organizations, will help farmers purchase premium seeds and other supplies, teach them new techniques for growing soy, and work with them to form farmer cooperatives. The organization also will promote investments in soy storage and processing and will work to boost the local feed and livestock industries to ensure the farmers have a stable market for their crops. Within four years, TechnoServe expects the effort to boost the income of 37,000 farming households by an average of $200 a year.

This program is part of TechnoServe's broader vision for the soy industry in sub-Saharan Africa — a region that contributes less than 1 percent of the world's soy.

"Through our forty-two years, TechnoServe has demonstrated that we can help change lives through focused interventions in a particular industry, such as coffee or cocoa," said TechnoServe president and CEO Bruce McNamer. "The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been tremendously supportive of our approach, and we look forward to working with them to build a soy industry in southern Africa and help break the cycle of poverty for tens of thousands of people in the process."