Facilitating Smallholder Farmers’ Market Access
In the OIC Member Countries
130
units. In this way, rural business hubs become a one-stop-shop for farmers and a
procurement center for other operators.
 Develop integrated, mega food parks. In this setup, a private firm is the anchor
investor; it invites other investors (processors and retailers), who then invite
logistics companies, to co-invest in the park. The public sector can also be an anchor
investor or infrastructure facilitator, providing water and electricity to the park (or
hub) along with technical assistance for the farmers linking to the hub.
 Set up collection centers. In India, private retailers have set up collection centers as
a procurement unit of the retailer or its dedicated wholesaler in a rural areas; the
centers also provide assets and services for small-scale farmers (for example, credit,
inputs, or technical advice). In some cases governments by themselves, or in
partnership with NGOs, set up physical infrastructure such as a warehouse or
collection center in a rural area to facilitate linkages between supermarket chains
and individual farmers or cooperatives. Usually this arrangement prevails when
retailers cannot or do not want to invest in providing the technical assistance or
credit that NGOs offer as part of their mandates.
Even when modern retailers prefer procuring from medium-sized producers, there is
some evidence that smallholders may still experience some spillover benefits, such as
when medium-sized farmers hire labor from local, small-farm households. China, despite
rapid “downstream” restructuring of the food industry, has seen little to no effect
transmitted upstream to small-scale farmers, because the transformed food industry
continues to rely mainly on traditional wholesale markets. 205
Foster the growth of effective producer organizations
Fostering the growth of more effective producer organizations provides opportunities to
improve links between smallholder farmers and modernizing agri-food systems. Producer
organizations have been defined as “structures for mediation between rural producers
and others who act in their economic, institutional, and political environment.”206 These
organizations can have multiple objectives, such as improving natural resource and asset
management (for example, water user associations, herder associations, and community
forest associations); helping rural producers expand their access to natural resources;
facilitating improved access to services, credit, and markets for rural producers; and
providing a platform for advocacy and influencing policies. Producer organizations can be
local entities operating in a village or among villages, or they may be regional or national
entities. In many countries, producer organizations have organized themselves into
federations at the local, regional, and national levels. Usually the function and level of
organization are related.
Experience indicates that there is no universal approach to supporting producer
organizations. Support must be tailor-made to the specific needs of producer
organizations in a given country and must foster learning-by-doing processes that will
205 Reardon et al. (undated).
206 Rondot and Collion (2001).