Market Access and Agricultural Product Marketing Promoting Farmer Initiatives Insights from the Working Group on “Market access and agricultural product marketing” This collective work is edited and presented by Anne Lothoré and Patrick Delmas 2009 1 2 ABOUT AFD, CTA AND INTER-RÉSEAUX DÉVELOPPEMENT RURAL The Agence Française de Développement is a public organisation that has one primary mission: financing the development of countries in the Global South. A specialised financial institution, AFD has worked for more than 60 years to fight poverty and improve the development of countries in the Global South with cooperation from France. Working on the ground in over 70 foreign countries, the agency finances and assists projects that are intended to improve the living conditions of populations, support economic growth and protect the Earth. These projects include the education of children, support for farmers, assistance to small businesses, irrigation, preservation of tropical rainforest and the fight against global warming. AFD 5, rue Roland Barthes - 75598 Paris cedex 12 www.afd.fr The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) was established in 1983 under the Lomé Convention between the ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific) Group of States and the European Union Member States. Since 2000, it has operated within the framework of the ACP-EU Cotonou Agreement. CTA’s tasks are to develop and provide products and services that improve access to information for agricultural and rural development, and to strengthen the capacity of ACP countries to acquire, process, produce and disseminate information in this area. CTA is funded by the European Union. CTA Postbus 380 6700 AJ Wageningen - Pays-Bas www.cta.int Inter-réseaux Développement rural is a forum in which stakeholders can share and discuss their experience in rural development. It is run by a network of actors who all work in this field, particularly in the Global South. Inter-réseaux is structured around its core founding members, an active network of several hundred contributing members and beneficiaries, and an outreach network of more than 6,000 people who make use of outputs from Inter-réseaux and who are located mainly in sub-Saharan Africa. Inter-réseaux Développement rural 32, rue Le Peletier - 75009 Paris www.inter-reseaux.org 3 CONTENTS About AFD, CTA and Inter-réseaux Développement rural . 3 OVERVIEW . 6 Contributors . 10 Acknowledgements . 12 Acronyms . 14 INTRODUCTION . 19 1 - Context . 21 2 - Scope and framework of project . 28 3 - Objectives of this document and intended audiences . 34 CHAPTER 1: Elaborating a collective reflection and selecting local initiatives for comparison and study 37 1 - Principles, approaches and tools used by the Working Group . 39 2 - Diversity of case studies and choice of exemplary case studies . 47 CHAPTER 2: Individual and collective activities undertaken by farmers: Comparative-analysis sheets . 57 Overview of activities in the form of information sheets . 59 Sheet 1 - Farm gate sales to intermediaries: negotiating margins and power relationships that are disadvantageous to farmers . 61 Sheet 2 - Individual sales at a nearby market: contrasting realities . 65 Sheet 3 - Organising transport to access distant markets and buyers . 69 Sheet 4 - Purchase-storage by the FO: who benefits wheen the FO buys its members’ products? . 73 Sheet 5 - The FO facilitates members’ acces to credit to market their products better . 81 4 5 Sheet 5’ - FO facilitation of access to inventory credit . 83 Sheet 6 - FO processing and packaging activities . 87 Sheet 7 - FO measures to improve technical pathways: grow more to sell more . 89 Sheet 8 - FO measures to improve product quality: what quality, at what cost, at what price and for which market(s)? . 91 Sheet 9 - Tackling measurement of quantities and weights: one weight, different measurements? . 97 Sheet 10 - Improvement of market information by the FO: what information is useful? . 99 Sheet 11 - The FO facilitates the gathering of supply at a single site in the market: for more transparent supply and demand . 103 Sheet 12 - The FO facilitates the matching of demand and supply: market organisation and agricultural fairs . 107 Sheet 13 - Regulation of supply in local markets . 117 Sheet 14 - Can temporarily blocking an imported product help FOs to develop their production? . 121 Sheet 15 - FO actions through consultation forums or interprofessional organisations in supply chains . 125 CHAPTER 3: Lessons from the participatory analysis process on local initiatives . 131 1 – Across-the board lessons from the different types of FO actions . 133 2 – Approaches and tools for sharing the concrete cases . 141 CONCLUSION . 153 1 – Marketing beliefs . 155 2 – Recommendations for supporting farmers’organisations . 158 3 – Follow up questions . 162 APPENDIX . 163 Participants in the Working Group on “Market Access and Agricultural Product Marketing” . 164 4 5 OVERVIEW INTRODUCTION Part 1: Contextual background of agricultural markets in sub-Saharan Africa Many farmers and breeders in sub-Saharan Africa face significant difficulty when trying to bring their products to market. They also complain about the low level of profit that they are able to earn from their products. One constantly hears complaints that “prices are too low,” “erratic price fluctuations,” as well as reports that denounce “unstructured markets” and “disorganised supply chains”. In order to confront these difficulties, farmers, breeders and their institutions are developing collective and individual strategies. These initiatives remain too few in number and are not well-known. Neither shared nor reinforced, they are rarely used by or for rural development practitioners. One still encounters among farmers (and others), persistent and inaccurate caricatures of market function and of other actors in the marketing process, particularly merchants. The poor level of knowledge about local initiatives and the functioning of markets and their actors are prejudicial, in the first instance, to farmers who cannot position themselves favourably in these markets. These factors create problems for local rural development, and in a more general way for entire countries. It is in this context that in 2004 Inter-réseaux initiated a program to analyse and collectively reflect upon these matters in aWorking Group devoted to “Market Access and Agricultural Product Marketing.” Part 2: Choices that impacted the methods and results of the Working Group The theme of market access and agricultural product marketing being extremely vast, choices were made to selectively limit the scope of the Working Group’s field of study. The first choice was to examine only initiatives undertaken by family farms and breeders, because family-scale operations constituted the large majority of agrarian production in the countries where the Working Group operated. This restricted the field of study by only a small amount, since family-scale operations are highly diverse. This document therefore presents a partial view, but attempts to encompass the diversity of different family-scale farming operations. A second choice was made to focus on concrete cases: initiatives where farmers, breeders and their organisations (FO) worked effectively to improve market access and the marketing of their agricultural products. A third choice was made to follow a program of collective reflection, designed to place actors at the centre of the process. These actors thus participated in exchange visits, carried out comparative studies and worked on written materials, video films and audio media to describe these initiatives on a case-by-case basis. Specific forms of support were provided by Inter-réseaux to carry out these activities: organisation/oversight of the process, logistical support, and financial support. The case-by-case analyses of initiatives and exchange visits were followed by further comparative analyses allowing researchers to take a step back from individual initiatives that each had their own particular features. The study then involved drawing general insights from the specific context of each of these initiatives. Part 3: Objectives and audiences for the present document This document is intended to compile and validate (i) the process of collective reflection developed within the Working Group to study and share case studies, and (ii) the comparative studies carried out and the insights taken from the various initiatives. It is meant to both support information sharing and encourage discussion of these points. It can be used by anyone working with methods of collective reflection and validation of local initiatives as tools for change (in particular chapters 1 and 3, which focus on methods and tools). However, it is above all intended for people involved in activities to organise actors in agricultural product marketing: farmers and FO staff and also people working in support of these actors. The case studies are situated in sub-Saharan Africa, but their significance and their use should not be limited to actors in this region, nor to the African continent. 6 7 CHAPTER 1: Elaborating a collective reflection process and the selection of local initiatives for study and comparison Part 1: Principles and major steps in the method guiding the Working Group The method of the Working Group was based on a double process of (i) highlighting initiatives by farmers and (ii) building collaborative thinking around these initiatives. Two key principles guided this work: a focus