Facilitating Smallholder Farmers’ Market Access
In the OIC Member Countries
131
vary according to those needs.207 Generally speaking, however, programs to support
producer organizations should embody a principle of empowerment and allow leaders
and members to be responsible for identifying their needs, organizing themselves to
access the services corresponding to those needs, and negotiating and contracting with the
service providers they select.
Governments and donors play important roles in supporting producer organizations. Only
governments can create the enabling environment and legal basis for producers
organizations to have a formal identity that is recognized under the law. Relevant donor
support may include financing to strengthen the strategic, technical, and financial capacity
of producer organizations. Training and other efforts to develop the organization’s human
resources (its members as well as its leaders) are vital. Neither donors nor governments
are well suited to provide the business development and management training that
producer organizations need to operate more effectively; those skills are delivered better
by private service providers or NGOs with the appropriate capacity. What government and
donors can provide, however, is indirect support—for example, through instruments such
as demand-driven funds to support producer organizations’ developmental needs. Funds
of this type are effective for fostering and empowering functional producer
organizations.208 They let producer organizations define their priorities, identify which
activities to finance, choose their service providers, and determine the timing and pace of
the activities they decide to pursue. In implementing such funds, it is important to
advertise them widely and award funds based on clear, transparent criteria and
procedures. Demand-driven funds may be managed by an external entity or the producer
organization itself, depending on the particular circumstances.
Productive alliances
Aside from producer organizations, several other institutional arrangements are evolving
to better link smallholder farmers to markets. One such arrangement is the productive
alliance model, which evolved from a World Bank project to support collaborative
arrangements between small-scale farmer organizations and agribusinesses in Colombia.
The Colombia Productive Partnerships Project (2002–08) supported the development and
implementation of partnerships by providing an integrated package of incentives and
assistance to producers. Variants of this model are now being implemented in a large
number of World Bank projects across Latin America, Africa, South and East Asia, and the
Pacific.
Productive alliances have four building blocks: organizing farmers, linking them to
markets, investing in production and marketing, and providing technical assistance. 209 The
approach addresses several issues in an integrated manner, including smallholders’
limited negotiating power, technical knowledge, financial resources, and access to rural
credit and to markets. The model is attractive because it combines investment, training,
the modern concept of innovation, and access to markets. In productive alliances, the main
207 Rondot and Collion (2001).
208 Rondot and Collion (2001).
209 Jansen (2013).