Based on more than 25 years of experience, IDE has developed a unique market-oriented development model that benefits the rural poor. We call it PRISM (Poverty Reduction through Irrigation and Smallholder Markets). Using PRISM, IDE integrates small farm households into markets and develops sustainable businesses that reduce rural poverty worldwide.
The PRISM Approach
PRISM is a set of tools that are used to develop an understanding of the unique situation of the rural poor and to create sustainable solutions to rural poverty. PRISM creates opportunities for increased income by:
Creating networks of small enterprises to provide agricultural supplies needed by poor farmers
Working with small farmers to improve productivity
Linking small farm families to markets for their produce
PRISM develops enterprises that improve small farm productivity and integrate small farms into markets for effective and sustainable poverty reduction.
PRISM Principles
The goal of PRISM is to enable the rural poor to transform their knowledge and skills into sustainable income through effective market participation and improve the natural resource base upon which their livelihoods depend. PRISM projects are guided by the following principles:
Benefits reach the disadvantaged. PRISM is responsive to the unique opportunities and needs of the rural poor and emphasizes listening to, learning from and benefiting those who live in extreme poverty.
Water control is key to income generation. Innovative low cost small scale irrigation technologies enable farmers to access, store and control water in order to increase farm income, improve water use efficiency, and reduce labor.
PRISM projects are entrepreneurial. Creative market driven, business oriented solutions to poverty enable the rural poor to participate fully in markets, creating efficient, sustainable income increases.
PRISM emphasizes sustainable resource management. The PRISM approach preserves the soil, land and water resources upon which both the rural poor and the market depend.
Our Life is Much Better An IDE Success Story from Zambia
Before learning about IDE, Peter Chakanyuka, along with his wife and six children, farmed a ½ hectare plot of land. Depending upon rain for irrigation, his family could only grow maize and peanuts, with yields that were too small to sell.
After purchasing a treadle pump from a local IDE representative, the Chakanyuka family increased its irrigated land to more than two hectares in a single season...
I Am Not Worried About My Children's Future An IDE Success Story from Bangladesh
“Four years ago, I thought poverty was my destiny, a chain that confined me, and was going to confine my family too,” says Nazrul Islam, whose family of five lived on less than a dollar a day prior to learning about IDE’s treadle pump program in Bangladesh...
A Good Job and a Secure Future An IDE Success Story from Vietnam
Years of war have left Phu Da commune with vast areas of sandy, infertile land pockmarked with bomb craters. IDE’s affordable hand pumps enabled farmers in Phu Da to grow better quality, high value crops even during the dry season. But, thanks to IDE’s entrepreneurial approach, it’s not just the farmers who benefit.
