Empowering Smallholder Farmers in Markets

Friday, April 8, 2011

Empowering Smallholder Farmers in Markets

One of the side events at the 3rd European Forum on Rural Development was about Linking smallholder farmers to efficient markets. Wednesday, March 30th. This side event was coordinated by Agrinatura. The moderator: was Giel Ton of ESFIM.

Case Studies:

Costa Rica: Fernando Saenz
Ghana: Matieyedou Kolambigue
Kenya: Daphne Gatwiri
Vietnam: Paule Moustier
Tanzania: Jacob Maiseli

Background

ESFIM’s overall objective is to generate demand-driven action research supportive to the policy activities undertaken by farmers’ organisations to strengthen the capacities of smallholder farmers in developing countries to generate remunerative cash income from markets by creating an enabling policy and regulatory environment as well as effective economic organisations and institutions.

Collaborative Research

There is a research support to eleven national farmers’ organisations that strengthen their capacities to formulate feasible, evidence-based propositions for changes in key elements in the institutional environment that empower smallholder farmers in markets.

Activities: NFOs from the selected countries will steer a research partnership for empowering their smallholder farmers in markets using research support of European and local researchers to feed discussions on smallholder market access within a farmer driven platform and a sequence of participatory workshops.

Outputs: NFO’s will have a pro-active lobby agenda related with smallholder farmers in markets, and a set of written technically sound propositions for changes in specific key elements in the institutional environment

Results: NFO’s will be capable to more effectively voice their specific research requirements and link up with researchers that can support them in executing their research activities.

The activities related to the Collaborative Research benefited in particular from a grant from the Dutch Ministry of Economy, Agriculture and Innovation (EL&I) with funds from the Dutch Ministry of Development Cooperation (DGIS). Most of the funds are used to pay for the local research support and participatory workshops and will be subcontracted to the eleven participating National Farmers Organizations (NFOs).

Comparative Research

In parallel to Collaborative Research actions, the activities related to Comparative Research continue and focus on Innovative Financial Models, Market Information Systems, Incentives in Collective Marketing and Risk Insurance. First outcomes of the research are now available through the ESFIM web-site.

European Research Partner

AGRINATURA