Second GFRAS webinar of the series on Public-Private Partnerships

17 February 2022. Public-Private Partnerships in Agricultural Extension. Second GFRAS webinar of the series on Public-Private Partnerships

This session presented the establishment of PPPs at the hand of three cases in Bangladesh, Thailand and East Africa, highlighting the form of PPP, its context and the support required.
Furthermore, experiences from within the GFRAS network were discussed to highlight best practices and issues and promote cross-region learning.

• Joe Slaats GFRAS
• Simon Winter (Syngenta Foundation)
• Rouf Abdur Bangladesh - Delivering plant health advice through Farmers' Hubs. Example of partnership between Syngenta and CABI
• Atthawit Watcharapongchai (GIZ) Public Private Partnership in the Sustainable Rice Initiative (SARA) Thailand - Value Chain in Sustainable Rice

Background Bangladesh:

Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture (SFSA) has designed an inclusive business model called “Farmers’ Hub” which is a one-stop commercial service platform creating smallholders’ access to quality inputs, Agri machines, markets, finance, and knowledge. It helps increase farm productivity and ensures fair prices.

Different external and internal studies show that the Hubs are a good vehicle for technology transfer and service delivery to small and marginal farmers in remote regions. Organizing smallholders this way can greatly facilitate the production and collection of quality crops from disadvantaged areas. It also improves compliance with quality standards. 

This is not only true in Bangladesh. Building on the success there, the Syngenta Foundation  team in Senegal launched its own Farmers’ Hubs at the end of 2017. In the last 3 years, Syngenta Foundation is also conducting a pilot phase for the Farmers' Hub model in Indonesia, Kenya, Mali, and Nigeria. In March 2018, Syngenta Foundation  has also added a digital platform, the efarmers hub to support the offer of the program. Besides this, this model is scaling up in different countries in Franchise or Network Manager concepts.

Background Thailand

The Sustainable Rice Platform e.V. (SRP) is a global multi-stakeholder alliance established in 2011. Originally co‐convened by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), UNEP and GIZ, SRP is now an independent membership association. Together with its over 100 institutional members from public and private sector stakeholders, research, financial institutions, and NGOs, SRP aims to transform the global rice sector by:

• 
  Improving smallholder livelihoods
• Reducing the social, environmental and climate footprint of rice production
• Offering the global rice market an assured supply of sustainably produced rice to meet the growing global demand for rice.

Registered SRP Projects are SRP member-led projects on the ground that use SRP tools to incentivize
and document rice farmers’ shift to sustainable farming practices. Currently, Registered SRP Projects are implemented at varying scales in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas, reaching nearly 500,000 rice farmers. Projects report results to the SRP Secretariat annually to aggregate global reach and impacts.

The 10th Anniversary Report commemorates SRP’s first decade of advocacy, as well as its continuing progress in helping producers switch to sustainable rice farming practices. Since its establishment in 2011, SRP evolved into a global multi-stakeholder alliance with over 100 institutional members, and over 400,000 farmers participating in 22 active Registered SRP Projects around the globe today.

The report showcases some of our most significant developments, including the launch of our SRP Standard for Sustainable Rice Cultivation, the world’s first sustainability standard in rice, together with SRP Performance Indicators – currently the only recognized working definition and set of metrics for sustainable rice production.

Resource:

AESA (2020) GOOD PRACTICES: Public Private Partnerships in Extension and Advisory Services Agricultural Extension South Asia (AESA) Network, # 32 p.

Provision of advice and other services related to farming at the village level is critical for enhancing the incomes of small and marginal farmers. Creation of an eco-system that can support the emergence of agri-entrepreneurs through delivery of these services at the village level is the only way forward if we are keen to enhance farm incomes. In this Good Practices Note, S Baskar Reddy, Rajendra Jog, Parikrama Chowdhry and Aravind Thumbur reflect on their experiences with developing and scaling up a model of agri-entrepreneurship by forging partnerships with a number of agencies.