chris barrett and ade freeman may 15, 2009 nairobi, kenya synthesis of recommendations from...
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Chris Barrett and Ade FreemanMay 15, 2009Nairobi, Kenya
Synthesis of RecommendationsFrom AGRA/ILRI Conference “Towards Priority Actions for
Market Development for African Farmers”
Priority actions: the policy maker’s perspective
Address the food price dilemmaCreate synergies between agricultural
production and marketsProvide options that address the challenges of
smallholdersCommercial viability of smallholder
agriculture given small farm sizes and land sub division
Functioning of land and labour marketsIdentify options for governments in public
private partnershipsPriority actions must
Meaningfully address these challenges Inform choices/policy decisions
Principles To Guide Priority Actions
1) Actively promote a culture of evidence-based decision-making by governments, donors, communities, NGOs, firms … everyone.
2) Improve coordination of interventions and their evaluation so as to generate more generalizable and directly comparable evidence on what works, what doesn’t, why and for whom.
3) Celebrate and encourage private sector initiative but equally recognize the critical role for government – to create appropriate enabling environment and crowd-in private investment via rule-based interventions .
Principles (continued)4) Essential to promote and involve farmer organizations in identification, design and evaluation of interventions. 5) Pay careful attention to the essential differences between gross benefits and net benefits, and to the
additionality and opportunity cost of using public or donor funds.6) Exports to OECD countries are desirable and beneficial, but focus on far larger domestic and regional markets. 7) Shape modern value chains (supermarkets, etc.) where possible, but focus first on traditional channels, which
remain the most important markets for some time.
Toward priority actions: what we know works
What we know works based on hard empirical evidence.Developing efficient rural input markets
Fertilizer and key inputsAgro-dealer networksSmart subsidies - provide affordable inputs;
stimulate growth of rural enterpriseImproving efficiency of agricultural value chains
Market Information SystemsPrivate standards and certificationICT based MIS for market dev, including use of
mobile phonesImproving integration of smallholders in value chains
including through organizational innovations Farmer organization and collective actionService delivery hubs
Priority Actions for market development
Focus investments to scale up “what works” for greater impacts
Rigorously evaluate interventions and policy changes: identify what works/what does not work, why, and in what contexts
Use lessons to inform strategy formulation and investment programming NEPAD/COMESA policy and advocacy processesCAADP Pillars – investment programming and country
compactsCountry strategies and investmentsDonor strategies and investmentsPrivate for-profit and not-for-profit actors
Learn, document, and mainstream into policy processes and investment programming
Priority Actions: Policies1) Reduce international (tariff and non-tariff) trade barriers.2) Harmonize grades and standards within national and regional markets (for seed, other inputs,
outputs).3) Pay attention to the possible need for anti-trust actions where non-competitive behaviors exist.4) Land and labour (education, health) policies must be right to facilitate smallholder productivity
growth and market participation.
Priority Actions: Investments
1) Improve access to financial services (credit, insurance) for producers and market intermediaries, especially small-scale and women. But How .. Need to know more??? Many candidate instruments – village banks, warehouse receipts, index insurance,
identity-based credentialing, venture capital for SMEs, etc. – evaluate best tool for the particular context. Need experimentation!
2) Extend, upgrade and maintain transport and power infrastructure to reduce commercial transactions costs and crowd-in private investment.
3) Build independent African food policy analysis capacity.
Priority Actions: Investments (continued)
4) Advance technical skills training, in post-harvest value addition activities, water management, new high-value products, food safety standards, etc. to better equip poor farmers and SMEs to increase and stabilize productivity and incomes.
5) Extend, upgrade and maintain town and urban marketing wholesaling infrastructure. 6) Facilitate rapid, broad roll-out of advanced ICT to improve information flow and to help
resolve coordination problems in value chains. Essential to leveling the playing field.
Key areas of agreementInvestment in infrastructure is high priority area of action
Need to re-prioritize infrastructure investments taking into accountReturns to infrastructure investment and comparative
advantage egTransport corridors and rural road networks that
support trade around “bread basket” areasValue chain as useful framework for market development:
focus on institutional arrangements and organizational innovations to improve efficiency and integrate smallholders
Understanding the appropriate role for governmentPolitical economyRule based
How make model/process more efficientActor linkages … need to address coordination failures at
different levels Capacity building.
Thank you for your insights and for refining this synthesis
of a rich discussion