Making the Grade : Smallholder Farmers, Emerging Standards, and Development Assistance Programs in Africa - A Research Program Synthesis
Market access has been identified as one of the foremost factors influencing the performance of small-scale producers in developing countries, and in particular least-developed countries. Smallholder access to markets for higher-value or differenti...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank
2012
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| Online Access: | http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/main?menuPK=64187510&pagePK=64193027&piPK=64187937&theSitePK=523679&menuPK=64187510&searchMenuPK=64187283&siteName=WDS&entityID=000333037_20120215233328 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/2823 |
| Summary: | Market access has been identified as one
of the foremost factors influencing the performance of
small-scale producers in developing countries, and in
particular least-developed countries. Smallholder access to
markets for higher-value or differentiated agricultural and
food products (hereafter HVAF) is recognized as a vital
opportunity to enhance and diversify the livelihoods of
lower-income farm households and reduce rural poverty more
generally (World Bank 2007a). Smallholder participation in
HVAF markets is typically constrained by inadequate
farm-level resources, farm-to-market logistical bottlenecks,
and more general transaction costs in matching and
aggregating dispersed supplies to meet buyer and consumer
demand. These traditional constraints have been amplified
and, in some cases, surpassed by a new set of challenges
associated with compliance with product and process
standards, set and enforced by governments as well as
private supply-chain leaders. In the face of emerging
challenges and opportunities associated with standards and
serving HVAF markets, many development agencies,
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), government agencies,
and private companies have implemented measures to level the
playing field, strengthen specific technical or
institutional capacities, or otherwise act to facilitate
smallholder compliance with standards and continued or
increased participation in HVAF supply chains. Such
investment, cost-sharing, capacity-building, or
capacity-bridging activities have expanded considerably in
recent years, especially in SSA. These initiatives have
taken varied forms and involved various entry points. Many
initiatives have been bottom-up, focusing on smallholder
(group) capacities for production, collective action,
standards compliance, and so forth; others have been
top-down, seeking to better link farmers to remunerative
markets through the efforts and enhanced capacities of lead
firms; and others have opted for intermediary models, with
donors and NGOs assuming critical supply-chain functions.
Still other interventions have focused outside of specific
value chains, seeking to strengthen the overall enabling
environment and support services for HVAF more generally.
Relatively little of this expanding field of development
assistance has been formally evaluated to consider its
cost-effectiveness and impacts. Nevertheless, there are
evident signs of learning and adjustment within the
development community regarding the strengths, limitations,
and pitfalls of various approaches and, relatively recently,
some efforts to begin to share these lessons and to better
coordinate development assistance in this field. |
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