Improving Agricultural Market Performance:
Creation and Development of Market Institutions
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1. In 2012 Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development of Nigeria launched the
Growth Enhancement Support (GES) programme, which entailed a fundamental policy
shift from considering agriculture expansion as a development obligation to treating it
as a business opportunity. Though it did not end provision of subsidized agricultural
inputs, the GES transferred responsibility for their supply from the state to the private
sector. The new system was based on three main pillars: 1) A profit-oriented network
of agricultural input dealers to supply farmers; 2) Commercial lending to agro-dealers,
underwritten by the Central Bank of Nigeria; and 3) A system of cashless e-wallets
(electronic vouchers) used by farmers for their transactions. By the second year of the
program, 5 million farmers were using e-wallets to obtain subsidized seeds and
fertilizer from 2,500 registered agro-dealers at designated redemption centers. By
2015 the GES had registered 10.3 million smallholder farmers, produced 15.5 million
metric tonnes of food annually, and increasing food security for 30 million people. The
program also increased annual commercial bank lending to agro-dealers by about
US$200 million, and proved instrumental in attracting over US$5 billion in new
investment commitments for one large fertilizer plant expansion and four projects.127
2. Egypt with the support of FAO, introduced a new, internet-based agricultural
extension network, which currently counts more than 21,000 members. The Virtual
Extension and Research Communication Network (VERCON) aims to harness the
potential of the Internet and apply it to strengthening and enabling linkages among the
research and extension components of the national agricultural knowledge and
information system. The overall goal of VERCON is to improve, through strengthened
research-extension linkages, the agricultural advisory services provided to Egyptian
farmers. VERCON links domestic and international, and public and private institutions,
including the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, the Ministry of Scientific
Research, Ain Shams University, Universities of Florida, Pennsylvania, and Michigan
State, among others.
3. The Partnership for Indonesian Sustainable Agriculture (PISAgro), founded in 2012, is
a network of public and private institutions, which aims to link food security,
environmental sustainability, and economic opportunity. Its membership includes four
Indonesian Government Ministries, 20 international and Indonesian companies
(including multinationals such as Nestle, Unilever, Bayer, and Cargill), the World
Economic Forum (WEF), International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Australian
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH),
Swisscontact (a business-oriented independent foundation for international
development cooperation active in 34 countries), Mercy Corps, the John Deere
Foundation, and UTZ, an international sustainability certification organization.
PISAgro has 12 working groups, covering Agricultural Finance, Beef Cattle, Cocoa,
Coffee, Corn, Dairy, Horticulture, Palm Oil, Potato, Rice, Rubber, and Soybean and
expert international advisors to support each group. These groups work closely with
farmers’ organizations to increase productivity and incomes. As of 2016 PISAgro had
worked with nearly 450,000 smallholder farmers cultivating some 350,000 ha.,
increasing productivity and incomes by more than 12%. Its goal is to work with at
127 Grow Africa (2016), Fertilizer Subsidy Reform Revives Nigeria’s Agriculture - Case Studies on Public-Private Agriculture
Investments, available a Accessed May
2017].