From Innovation Piloting to Scaling

An Excerpt of i4Ag’s Innovation Portfolio

At the Fund for the Promotion of Innovation in Agriculture (i4Ag), we promote and scale promising innovations.

Our innovation portfolio entails areas of technology, partnership and processes. Topics include mechanisation, digitalisation, renewable energies, agricultural research, policy and trade, and cooperation with industry. We currently support 75 innovations across 32 countries.

Many innovations start out small as pilots in one specific context. With our systemic scaling approach, we aim at improving the framework for scaling to bring sustainable, gender-sensitive agricultural/high-impact innovations into broader use.

Scroll down to explore our work:

Learn more about scaling, discover our capacity development programme Fit4Scale, get to know the i4Ag fund, and dive into one of our scaling strategies: “Scaling Climate-Smart Cotton Production”.

Our Scaling Approach

Scaling is rarely a linear process. We recognise the need for collective action through global partnerships and institutional mainstreaming of innovation scaling. By doing so, we can unlock the full potential of agricultural and food innovations. However, a shift is needed. In response, we follow a multifaceted approach comprising the improvement of methods and tools, such as funding instruments, capacity development, organisational mainstreaming and cross-organisation cooperation.

Learn More About Scaling

Register for Our Fit4Scale Programme

Our capacity development programme Fit4Scale is designed to help you prepare for innovation scaling. We know that many innovations shine in the pilot phase, but turning that potential into sustainable, large-scale impact is a major hurdle. We help you bridge that gap.

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Agrifood Systems Technologies and Innovations Outlook

We contribute to the development of FAO’s AI-enabled ATIO Knowledge Base, an innovation platform which provides access to information on validated agri-food innovations for a variety of stakeholders, ranging from researchers to end-users. The GIZ’s commitment focusses on the integration of grassroots innovations developed by local farming communities, thus linking informal with formal innovation systems for enhanced global sharing.

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Promotion of Innovation in Agriculture (i4Ag)

GIZ’s Fund for the Promotion of Innovation in Agriculture (i4Ag) supports a diverse portfolio of agricultural innovation projects worldwide and enables what scaling needs: practical methods and tools, supportive local policies and institutions, capacity development for partners, finance and resource mobilization, and coordination mechanisms and professional networks. Our aim is to bring high‑impact innovations into broader use by creating a favourable scaling ecosystem.

Get to Know i4Ag

Scaling Climate-Smart Cotton Production

Smallholder cotton farmers are confronted with climate change, degraded soils, expensive inputs and low, stagnant yields. Through implementing sustainable innovations, the main objective is to strengthen local farms’ climate resilience.

Read About Our Project

I4Ag as Part of the Sustainable Agricultural Supply Chains Initiative (SASI)

The Sustainable Agricultural Supply Chains Initiative (SASI) aims at making global agricultural supply chains more sustainable. It combines different types of initiatives within a strong partnership. Together, this “toolkit” enables German development cooperation to act flexibly with multiple stakeholders across supply chains.

Within SASI, the i4Ag acts as the funding and innovation engine. Its mandate is to promote gender‑equitable, climate‑sensitive, and sustainable innovations across agri‑food systems, working with public and private partners and international organizations along entire value chains.

About SASI