Our farmers are entrepreneurs, just like their counterparts in the telecoms industry. Yet they face even greater risks in getting their goods to market. This is particularly true of our smallholder farmers, most of them women, who cultivate plots about the size of a football field or two. She typically farms without the benefits of quality inputs - seeds, soil supplements and reliable irrigation - and access to credit. She often tills her land with little or no machinery because her earnings are too low to make any investments. On top of this she has to deal with the harsh reality of climate change that mean her crops are increasingly likely to fail. In the case of maize, her yields are set to reduce by a quarter. Despite these risks, our smallholders are as efficient as their larger counterparts – a remarkable result that is testament to our farmers’ tenacity and resilience.