SEEP Member, Catholic Relief Services, is on the Steering Group of an exciting new project, SEADS, which is developing a set of international standards that will enable those responding to humanitarian crises to design, implement, and evaluate agricultural interventions to maintain and strengthen the livelihoods of farming communities, increase their resiliency, and support preparedness and post-emergency recovery. To develop the standards, we will rely on input and feedback from a broad number of stakeholders including, crisis-affected populations, local NGOs and civil society, governments in affected countries, international NGOs and UN agencies, and international donors. Once the standards are complete, SEADS will seek membership in the Humanitarian Standards Partnership.

SEADS is seeking evidence on interventions that are shown to be cost-effective, timely, relevant, and have positive impacts on livelihoods, markets, systems, and services before, during, and after different types of emergencies in these areas:

1. Seed and seed systems: includes direct provision of seeds and support to systems that give farmers the means to obtain seed
2. Integrated pest management and disease control: includes direct provision of pesticides or control accessories and support to systems that give farmers the means to respond to various pest and disease issues
3. Soil fertility: includes direct provision of fertilizer or application equipment and approaches that give farmers the means to improve their soil health
4. Agriculture infrastructure, tools, and machinery: includes direct provision of materials and support of infrastructure repairs, maintenance, and market systems to make materials more available
5. Agriculture market systems: includes interventions related to core market function (using, supporting or developing markets on both the supply-side and demand side); supporting functions (services and infrastructure); and policies, norms and rules
6. Securing land access: includes primarily indirect interventions focused on ensuring that producers have access to land for production
7. Agriculture knowledge, skills, and abilities transfer: includes methods to assess competencies, design and generate knowledge products, and the associated delivery mechanisms to support various types and scales of training
8. Agriculture production systems: package approaches, such as Conservation Agriculture or Hydroponics, that make up a system, not individual interventions under each approach

Do you have impact evidence in these areas? If so, please share it at coordinator@seads-standards.org.

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Want to know more? Go to the SEADS website to learn more and find out how you can get involved. Follow SEADS on Twitter @SEADS_Standards and LinkedIn.