Semilla Nueva

In many Latin American and Sub-Saharan African countries, maize is the main staple food because it’s cheap and easy to grow, but its poor nutritional profile also makes it one of the biggest contributors to malnutrition.

Our model is low-cost, high-impact, sustainable, and scalable.

1. We find the seeds farmers want. Worldwide, 53M smallholder farmers grow maize. They typically have less than 1 hectare of land, with yields of less than 2 mt/ha, and the majority live in poverty or extreme poverty. New hybrid seeds from seed banks like CIMMYT or international companies can significantly increase farmers’ yields, climate resilience, and profits, but are normally too expensive and inaccessible. Semilla Nueva tests these seeds and licenses them.
2. We make those seeds nutritious. Semilla Nueva developed a natural (non-GMO) breeding process to take those high-yielding seeds and improve their zinc, iron, and protein quality. This nutritious “biofortified” maize has been proven to reduce malnutrition. We’ve released these seeds for Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, and are developing them for Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Malawi.
3. We make them accessible. We work with seed companies, governments, and NGO partners to implement country-specific solutions that improve seed access, either through prioritizing these new seeds in existing social programs or through subsidizing their price to make them more accessible.

Our seeds allow farmers to double their incomes, reduce climate-induced crop losses by 54%, and the maize we grow is nutritious enough to significantly reduce zinc, iron, and protein deficiencies. In 2024, we reached 30,000 farmers in Guatemala,  and El Salvador, who produced enough maize to feed over 1 million individuals. In 2025, our target is doubled to reach 60,000 farmers and their families.