Facilitating Smallholder Farmers’ Market Access
In the OIC Member Countries
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estimated to use the ECX price as a reference for local market prices, with the result that they have reduced
the margin between the local and ECX price by nearly 50 percent.
Source: Authors, based on Everitt 2012; Gabre-Maghi 2011; USAID-EAT Project and University of Illinois
2012; EC 2013.
BOX 8: AN INNOVATIVE AGENT MODEL SUPPORTS MARKET LINKAGES IN ZAMBIA
To increase productivity, farmers need access to inputs such as fertilizer, other kinds of production
technology, and training. To market their produce, farmers require access to business management services
such as information and communication technology (ICT) and finance. Often smallholders—from semi-
subsistence growers to growers with a substantial share of produce to market—are excluded from formal
market participation because they cannot access such inputs and services.
An innovative agent model for agricultural extension in Zambia helps farmers, including small-scale
producers, to gain better access to markets by offering incentives for extension service providers to act as
the critical link between farmers, input suppliers, and buyers. Extension agents become paid participants in
the value chain, with payments depending on the number of farmers they link through formal contracts
with input suppliers and large-scale buyers such as millers, brewers, and organizations such as the World
Food Programme. The approach has worked well for smallholders in Zambia, where numerous input and
service providers already support a commercial farming sector that produces major traded grains such as
maize, wheat, and barley.
The model, jointly developed by the United States Agency for International Development and the
Cooperative League of the USA in Zambia, has strengthened smallholders’ access to critical services.
Smallholders have gained direct access to local supply chains, have grown competitively, and have
developed strong, sustainable market participation. The model has benefited extension service providers by
enabling them to move away from their traditional role as providers of a “free” service (which in reality is
often a burden on state budgets) to become co-investors and active agents in the supply chain.
Source: Authors, based on Ferris et al. 2014.
BOX 9: AFFORDABLE TECHNOLOGY IMPROVES FOOD SAFETY AND MARKET ACCESS IN
MALAWI
In the 1960s, more than 90 percent of world groundnut exports came from five countries in Sub-Saharan
Africa (SSA), but by 2013, SSA’s share of groundnut exports had fallen to 5 percent. This drastic reduction
resulted from importing countries’ adoption of new, strict standards that limited levels of aflatoxins.
Aflatoxins are highly carcinogenic, potentially deadly toxins produced by fungi that contaminate
groundnuts, maize, sorghum, and cassava in hot and humid conditions, especially in the tropics and
subtropics. Meeting the new standards required substantial investments in infrastructure, systems, and
management practices that African governments and smallholders could not afford. Countries capable of
meeting the standards, such as China, Argentina, and the USA, took over the market.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization report that aflatoxins
are linked not only to liver damage and cancer but to childhood stunting, immune disorders, and maternal
anemia. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, around 4.5 billion people are chronically
exposed to aflatoxin contamination. For African countries, which trade around 60 percent of groundnut
production in “informal” local markets, aflatoxins remain a major public health concern.
Aflatoxin contamination can occur at several points along the supply chain, from the farm to post-harvest
handling and consumption. For example, softening groundnuts in water to ease manual shelling and then
storing shelled nuts in inappropriate facilities on the farm can greatly increase moisture levels and facilitate
contamination. Inexpensive hand-operated shelling equipment helps to reduce contamination at the
processing stage, but much more intervention is needed to remove these toxins from the human food chain,
including improved testing, consumer awareness, and market regulations.
A low-cost, portable aflatoxin detection kit developed by the Mchinji National Smallholder Farmers’