How can beneficaries use LRAD?

 

Beneficiaries can use LRAD for a continuum of projects, ranging in size from food safety net and subsistence production to small and medium-sized farms. People can access LRAD as individuals or as groups at any level. Beneficiaries might want to access LRAD to achieve varying objectives, such as food safety-net projects, equity schemes, production for markets, and others. These are now discussed briefly for illustrative purposes only-because LRAD encourages beneficiaries to design whatever works best for them.

 

Food safety-net

Many beneficiaries may wish to access LRAD to acquire land for food-crop and/or livestock production to improve household food security. This can be done on an individual or group basis. Many of these projects will be at the smallest end of the scale, because poor individuals may be able to mobilise only the minimum own contribution in cash, labour, and materials.

 

Equity scheme

Beneficiaries can make the requisite matching own contribution, and receive equity in an agricultural enterprise equal to the value of the grant plus the own contribution. Because under the terms of LRAD, the grant is intended for people actively and directly engaged in agriculture, the grant recipient in the case of the equity scheme will be both a co-owner and employee of the farm. The purchased equity should be marketable in order to retain its value.

 

Production for markets

Some beneficiaries will enter LRAD to engage in commercial agricultural activities. They will access the grant and, together with normal bank loans and their own assets and cash, they will purchase a farm. These applicants will typically have greater farming experience and expertise than those accessing land for subsistence or food-safety-net-type activities.

 

Agriculture in communal areas

Many people living in communal areas already have secure access to agricultural land, but may not have the means to make productive use of that land.  Such people would be eligible to apply for assistance so as to make productive investments in their land such as infrastructure or land improvements.  These projects may take on the character of food safety-net projects, or may be more commercially oriented.

 

LRAD is flexible enough to accommodate a number of types of projects.  Purely residential projects would not be supported under LRAD unless beneficiaries seek to establish household gardens at their new residences.

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