Connecting Farmers to Markets: the Purchase Progress (P4P) pilot initiative

As the world's largest humanitarian agency, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) is a major food buyer. WFP spends hundreds of millions of dollars in food every year and around 82 percent of these purchaes in developing countries. Local procurement for WFP's food assistance programmes requires cost-efficiency, quality commodities and timeliness of deliveries.

Through the Purchase Progress (P4P) pilot initiative, WFP’s uses its demand in innovative ways to support the development of agricultural markets and small holders farmers' engagement in these markets. As the majority of the world's poorest people live in rural areas and rely on agricutural for their livelihood, P4P's contribution to agricultural development is an important step towards reducing hunger and poverty. Critical to the success of P4P is the wide range of partner to farmers in gaining access to new markets, for example:

• Improving their skills to increase the quantity and quality of their crops-e.g.,training in farming techniques, and use of the best seeds and fertilizers for their land
• Reducing post harvest loss-e.g., training in storage techniques and rehabilitation/construction of storage facilities.
• Enhancing farmers' knowledge of markets-e.g., quality, pricing, packaging
• Strengthening their farmers' organizations-e.g., training in management and negotiation of contracts, strengthening account and fiscal systems
• Improving business skills-e.g., preparing business plans, access to credit.

During the European Development Days a panel discussion was organised on December 7th around the theme Food Security What Role For Local Authorities In Least Developed Countries?

The following extract of this panel discussion focuses on the presentation made by Ken Davies
P4P Coordinator.


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