Facilitating Smallholder Farmers’ Market Access
In the OIC Member Countries
97
exporters is the poor and mixed quality of unprocessed produce.160 Exporters of processed
food must meet the stricter food safety and quality requirements imposed by importers,
including supermarkets. Smallholders would benefit from improved knowledge of
GlobalGAP Control Points and Compliance Criteria, which have been developed specifically
to enable small-scale farmers to meet basic farming standards. Food processors would
benefit from obtaining ISO certification.
High losses in transport and storage are costly. Vegetable production is concentrated in
the two southern provinces (Jalalabad and Osh, with 45 percent of production) and one
northern province (Chui, with 40 percent). Jalalabad and Osh are about 600–800
kilometers from Bishkek, where the main domestic markets and export outlets to Russia
and Kazakhstan are based. Perishable vegetables are transported from fields in trucks that
lack adequate cooling facilities. Delivery times are long owing to delays at borders and
traffic police points.161 For example, along the major Ak–Jol–Bishkek–Osh–Dostuk trade
corridor (765 kilometers), transport costs are US$ 767, including US$ 655 for official and
US$ 112 for unofficial payments. Total travel time is 27 hours at an average speed of about
39 kilometers per hour, and trucks are stopped 15 times by transport control and traffic
police. Once vegetables arrive at the main markets, their shelf-life is reduced by limited,
inadequate storage facilities. Physical losses of vegetables during transport and storage
are estimated at 30 percent,162 and informal payments are estimated to account for about
5 percent of the value of the transported crop.163
Farmers’ bargaining position is weakened by the lack of reliable market information, small
volumes, and inadequate storage facilities. Vegetable producers who participate in the
export market by selling to traders report receiving almost the same price as they receive
for selling their produce for domestic consumption.164 Better access to market
information, adequate storage facilities, and better marketing strategies (such as sorting
and grading produce on the farm and selling in bulk through producer groups) would
improve farmers’ bargaining positions and help them realize a better price for these high-
value crops.
Only around 0.3 percent of vegetable production is transformed into tomato paste, tomato
juice, cucumber and tomato pickles, and dried vegetables,165 yet even for the small
volumes they handle, processors find it difficult to secure reliable supplies of good quality
produce. Commonly cited difficulties include the geographic dispersal of producers, the
poor and varied quality of the produce, and failure to meet the terms of contracts with
regard to volumes and prices. Weak supply arrangements and the high cost of sourcing
sufficient quantities of produce have caused some processors to import juice
concentrates. 166
160 USAID (2011).
161 World Bank (2011a, 2011b); Agribusiness Competitiveness Center (2008).
162 USAID (2011).
163 World Bank (2011b).
164 DIW Berlin (2011).
165 USAID (2011).
166 World Bank (2014d).