credit and market along with a package of innovation will improve their efficiency and productivity

Mohamed, i sincerely agree with you. Credit is very critical. In fact, it is my research area for my doctoral studies. But what do you think about the proliferation of financial NGOs. Are they really making the desired impact? I ask this because of the reluctance of most commercial banks to lend to the rural sector/farming due to various reasons. Market access is still an issue. value chain development is critical. Are farmers adopting the packages they have been introduced to so far? Any measures for improvement?

For me no single approach can be successful. There is the need for a more holistic approach to development. The issue may not necessarily be policy because the good policies are already there. Implementation (how, when, where) is important.

A lot has been done in the area of technology development and dissemination and a lot more needs to be done. Personally, there is the need for proper targeting of technologies that already exist or that are yet to be developed. That is why I find the trends in integrated research for development as important.

Another issue is sensitization. Most of the development packages have created the notion of free delivery of research and extension. This has gravely affected sustainability and adoption of sound practices. Farmers are not entirely motivated to adopt technologies because they know or believe they are bound to receive another visit by extension officers or NGOs with virtually free stuff. Attitudinal change from change agents to the change beneficiaries.

On the issue of credit NGOs are doing their best but can still be supported. From experience the recovery rate of NGOs in credit delivery is terrible. That has also been the concern of commercial banks. In a largely informal system credit recovery can be challenging. However there are some agencies that have managed to put appropriate structures in place to extend and recover credit. There are successes in those areas that can be learnt and improved.

Finally, the issue of value chain is highly critical for agricultural development. Perhaps not just the chain but a kind of platform that brings stakeholders who may not necessarily be part of the chain together. These are the new trends in thinking that has led to the development of multi-stakeholder platforms. In deed the challenge is huge and the need for collective efforts is key.

I agree with you, and believe that until we tackle the challenge of implementation, the problems will persist. Some stories of success in recovery rates in credit provision are reported, Masara N'Arziki for instance I am told. But the need for attitudinal changes cannot be overemphasized, as you rightly stated. We must tackle rural development as a national priority, and raising the productivity of smallholder producers remains a key. Where do we start?

Dear readers, it's very essential and of utmost important that this open disucussion forum continues. Right now many government officials are gleaning the nework for possible answers.

Iam of the opinion that developing economies in most cases, adopt developed nations blueprints to mitigate small holder productvity issues. These are 2 different issues. We must adopt "Our own " blueprint. Small holdership virtually non-existant in the developed economies.Inputs must be small holder related ability to implement productivity enhancing methods. Cocoa beans, coffee beans, natural rubber etc and many other priary products still help run developed markets productivity and economy.

Policy makers from both sides have not fully understood underlying handicap of viewing developing econmy in a phycian/patient scenario. Developing economies are virtually forced to run befer they can even walk!

Provision of credit at affordable, preferably single digit interest rate; provision of value-adding infrastructural facilities; linkage to market for their quick evacuation of produce; minimization of corruption among the service providers; and sincere support for an effective monitoring and evaluation system are all part of the desirable policy measures on this issue

Dear all,

In my opinion, and as it has been mentioned previously from Alexander Wiredu, what it is vital for the future development of smallholder agriculture in developing countries is the existence of sustainable value chain systems.

No matter how high is the financial support to the farmers that will not be a benefit for them unless they are able to push their products into the market in a profitable way.

Please visit the following website where you can find some information about an FP7 project about sustainable value change systems in the Mediterranean countries. You will have access to various articles and dissemination papers.

SUSTAINMED

http://sustainmed.iamm.fr/

Best regards

Yiorgos

Until govt realised the need to carry farmers along in policies that concerns them directtly.this is what the agric transformation agenda of nig seeks to address under the growth benhancement support scheme

Benjamin,

A number of good points have been raised by most respondents above. I would just like to add a few more things when you talk of increased productivity and efficiency of smallholder farmers.

First of all implementation of the existing policies by various governments in developing countries is still a big problem. Consider the Maputo declaration arrived years ago of allocating 10% of the Budget to Agriculture. How many developing countries have invested heavily in agriculture to that level??? This 10% is just part of the role of the state in helping smallholder farmers.

Second, smallholder farmers need to be properly organized into well functioning "cooperatives" or "farmer associations" that are strong in terms of both horizontal and vertical integration since each one individually is too small to obtain the services and resources needed for efficient production. This is on the supply side alone.

The strong "cooperatives" are a good one stop center for a number of things. Efficiency implies these farmers have to learn to KEEP BASIC FINANCIAL RECORDS of all their farm activities the way Large Scale farmers do. Training them through associations in rudimentary record keeping is a must for improved efficiency via Adult literacy training through farmer groups.

Access to micro-finance credit, training in basic farm management (including record keeping) is easier when in strong well functioning groups. Access to tractor hire services (hand hoe agriculture means eternal poverty - all policy makers know this fact) is very crucial as well as access to crop threshing/shelling machines. These two services are easier to obtain when in a group for any smallholder farmer. Access to ICT-based market information and yield augmenting inputs such as seed, agro-chemicals are much easier to access when in groups for smallholder farmers. However, the private sector in most developing countries does not cater very well for the individual smallholder for obvious reasons. For example, providing timely and accurate market information on a commercial basis to individual smallholder farmers is still a big problem; providing low cost credit to them (who should meet the cost of subsidized interest rates??) is still a policy issue. The LIST HERE is endless.

From the demand side, there has to be ready markets for these smallholder farmers in order to stimulate them with incentives such as fixed price forward contracts which ensure favorable agricultural terms of trade. If the State facilitates the growth of Agro-processing industries, then the probability that these buy from well organized farmer "cooperatives" with fixed price forward contractual engagements is increased. The prices therein are better than what the individual smallholder would secure from traders. This is where vertical integration is crucial for the farmer groups when dealing with large scale consumers such as Exporters, Agro-Processors, Government, and International Firms. How do smallholder farmers secure very good and reliable markets by themselves???? This is a one policy vacuum where the State in most developing countries has been not interested in dealing with.

Infrastructure development (of a public good nature) is always avoided in policy fora. You can't have all these things above (the markets, incentives, etc, etc) working when the roads from the deepest rural areas are in very poor condition. That means transactions costs will be very high due to the remoteness of the locations. All the above points are rendered useless if there is limited access to all the above by the smallholder.

Lack of well functioning standardization and quality control measures for grading and sorting of local produce is a major policy problem. Smallholder often fail to meet Export Grades and Standards and miss out on international markets due to this policy failure. Larger scale farmers buy and bulk from them because they have the facilities to meet these standards. Smallholders need groups to meet these standards.

The list of issues is ENDLESS both from the supply and demand side and both from the State and private sector actors. However, phased policy implementation is in order, what is chronology of order (without political capital accumulation interference)

Therefore in conclusion, the issue you raise is a very complex one requiring a lot of facets to improve the productivity and efficiency of smallholders. The issue of How to Empower them to do so is Dodged by politicians and policy makers when they fail to implement even half of what the State can do. Maputo declaration of 10% was in good faith but how should the breakdown be in general????

Barnabas Kiiza

Makerere University.

1. Investment in R&D

2. Variety replacement

3. Seed replacement

4. Co-operative farming/Joint farming

Benny,

Some insights provided from these papers.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299604127_Human_Factors_Affecting_Productivity_in_Jamaica_Technical_Report_on_Preliminary_Findings

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305687139_Priority_policy_recommendations_for_transforming_individual_productivity_and_SME_competitiveness_in_Jamaica

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299747565_Towards_a_talent-driven_outward-oriented_globally-competitive_SME_framework_Discussion_Paper

Technical Report Human Factors Affecting Productivity in Jamaica: Technical R...

Technical Report Priority policy recommendations for transforming individual ...

Technical Report Towards a talent-driven outward-oriented globally-competitiv...