2. Background
From the late 80 and early 90s smallholder farmers
started to face substantial barriers to achieving
improved livelihoods as commodity prices declined,
public sector reform reduced assistance and natural
resources became scarcer. This coupled with market
integration led to increased competition.
Research into way through which competitiveness of
smallholder farmers would be enhanced began. CIAT
among fore front agencies looking at ways of integrating
smallholder farmers in competitive value chains
3. Strategies considered
Increasing competitiveness of market chains
Adding value
Diversification (products and services)
Better organization
New contractual arrangements
Links to financial services
5. The Methods
Have been developed over the past 12 years, they
have been well tested
Are being used in Central America, Andean
America, South East Asia and Eastern and
Southern Africa, and West Africa through
Learning alliances.
Taken up and scaled out by National, Regional
and International organisations
CRS, CARE, Africare, World Vision, National
Government agencies.
7. Key Features of Rural Agro-enterprise development
Process
Area based
Participatory
Market led
Thinking “outside the farm”
Scaleable
Seeking continuous innovation
Building on local skills and empowering communities
8. Entry Points for the Process
Competence of Service provider
Organisation of farmers
Wealth of groups
Market access and engagement
Product types
Availability and access to services
10. Working group for Agro-enterprise within VC framework)
National / International Enabling
Environment
Commercial (and social) interests
Value Chain Operators
Input Suppliers
Consumers at Formal
Wholesalers Retailers Market
Farmers Suppliers Processing
(Formal and informal Factories / Value
groups) Transporters Addition
Wholesalers Retailers Consumers at
Informal Market
Intra-chain / Inter-actor support, coordination,
management. Improving efficiency and transparency of transactions
Support of development goals and public interests, payment
Interventions,
business support
Service Providers
Research BDS
Supporters /
Value Chain
Extension NGOs State Bodies Microfinance Institutions Banks
Bodies Providers
Non-financial Services Financial Services
11. The marketing facilitator “A Market visit”
Market Opportunity Identification is a process of generating
knowledge and making decisions based on Demand.
Taking clients to the market is often a real “eye opener”
12. Participatory approaches increase the level of farmer ownership in
the process and enables producers and Service providers to develop
new types of relationships, FACILITATION
13. Service Providers discussing options for a new
Business with farmers and Chain Actors
Stockists
Traders
Partner,
service
provider
Farmers
15. 6 months
months
Business
Apply, Development
monitor and
follow-up
L Services and
their
8 months
months assessment
Agroenterprise
Apply,
monitor and
follow-up
L design and
development of
action plans
5 days
days
6 months
Evaluating and
Apply, 5 days
days
monitor and
follow-up
L selecting
enterprise
alternatives
Interest group
An incremental learning
formation and
market opportunity
5 days
days process
identification
Monitoring and evaluation
5 days
days
16. Service Provider Farmer Profiling
Small-scale farmers
Link supplier groups
Specialist marketing organised & supplying
To specialist
service providers a specialised
service providers
value chain
Increase
Service providers Small-scale farmers Competitiveness in input
With strong organised and And output markets
Marketing adding value to Link activities to
experience selected products finance services
Diversify products
Service providers
Small-scale farmers strengthen business
With more
organised to sell skills
Marketing
produce collectively Initiate savings records
experience
Link to MF
Service providers Individual Organise farmers
With limited Small-scale farmers Select existing product
Marketing Sell surplus product Produce for the
experience into the market Market. Evaluate
17. Development impact
Increased farm income
Ground nut producers in Eastern Uganda. Nnegotiations led to a 16%
price premium due to higher quality of nutsn and selling to a known buyer.
Cut flowers in Cauca, Colombia. 24% price increase for producers for
flowers sorted, graded and packed to customers needs.
In Tanzania, 15 NGOS capacity in market development build in an IFAD
program . Farmer income increases 15-25%
Potato farmers in Kabale, Uganda. Sold 2000 Mt of potatoes for $300,000,
in past 8 years.
In Rwanda, over 15,000 families increased their income through integration
in vegetable, high value chillies, baskets
Scaling out to the Development world
CRS global Agro-enterprise development initiatives
CAREs pathways women's empowerment program ( 6 countries 14 value
chains
Empowered communities and farmers (est. 200,000 farm families)
Through reference/pilot sites and Learning alliance
More effective rural business development service providers
Partners in reference/pilot sites and in Learning Alliance projects
Rwanda, Ethiopia, Burundi, Malawi and Zambia
18. Conclusions
Productivity alone has not succeeded in reducing rural
poverty. A broader strategy is needed.
The global agrifood system is becoming less remunerative
for primary producers.
Farmers need to be competitive and better organised to
make farming pay
Farmers need to find ways of adding value to their goods
and accessing new markets.
We Need to develop new ways of strengthening skills to
enable rural innovation so that our beneficiaries can find
and manage markets, access value adding technologies,
achieve improved links with other actors and organize
effective support services are possible ways forward.
Editor's Notes
Picture at back The community facilitator’s work is complemented by the market facilitator , who guides the farmers through the market opportunity and evaluation process that I have just described. He or she is a vital link between the farmers’ knowledge of their own situation and the ‘outside’ world, and in particular access to information that is required to take good decisions with respect to production opportunities. In this slide we see Macdonald of Concern Universal, in the same community in Malawi, as he helps a group of male farmers decide on the next steps in developing their rabbit enterprise. Between now and December there will be a large increase in the number of rabbits and actions need to be taken now to organize their sale. Picture at front In this slide, Charles Musoke of Africare in Kabale is organizing with a potato retailer in the local market a visit of farmers to gather information on preferred varieties, quality requirements, prices, overall demand, frequency and continuity of delivery as part of the process of selecting among different production options. It is the market facilitator, from either government or non governmental organizations who is the direct beneficiary of CIAT’s research on community enterprise development. Our aim is to provide the Macdonalds and Charles with methods and tools that can help them improve the facilitation processes with the community, increase the success of enterprise development and reduce the risk implied by moving toward a market orientation.
This example of a “participatory map” was generated by a group of coffee farmers in the Municipality of Sulaco, Honduras. These farmers had a broad picture of the chain—from production to export—and succeeded in identifying most of the actors. Despite the good picture, when it was looked at in more detail, most of the map’s information lay in the links between the farmer and the large-scale merchant—in this case, the “Fat Man from Yoro”—and that details beyond this point were limited. An important issue that did not appear in the map was that of quality. In this case, the importance of quality was brought out by the facilitator in discussion with the person who drew the respective map. Those who did not participate in this exercise were the small and large intermediaries, export companies, and support entities. As a result, information for these links had gaps that had to be filled in with the viewpoints of the other actors, whether through workshops, focus groups, or semi-structured interviews.