Catholic Relief Services - East Africa, Foodnet (IITA) and
the Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT)

Background
Today the majority of smallholder farmers of Africa are faced with the ever-increasing imperative to incorporate themselves into the market economy in order to generate cash income that will allow them to fulfill their basic needs, and thereby improve their livelihood. These farmers have been accustomed primarily to producing basic food staples for their own subsistence. These commodities are of low value and have experienced declines in their real price over the past decades as a result of improved production technology and the high levels of competitiveness achieved by medium to large-scale producers.

Among the options that smallholders have for confronting this situation are:

a) Diversification, by incorporating into their production system higher value crops or livestock that have an identified market demand.

b) Adding value to the products that they currently grow, by changes in farming practices that enhance product quality and the incorporation of post-harvest handling and processing activities that meet the needs of clients or consumers.

In order to take advantage of these potential options, however, the resultant activities must be competitive, sustainable and equitable in the distribution of benefits.
Competitiveness can be understood in the context of:

a) a market orientation which produces the right product for the right buyer at the right time and price;

b) the establishment of production systems that make efficient use of existing financial, human and natural resources;

c) the incorporation of necessary post-harvest handling and processing techniques;

d) appropriate business and marketing skills and organizational schemes which lead to economies of scale, and;

e) improved links among market chain actors and flows of information and technologies.

Catholic Relief Services (CRS) has recognized the need for incorporating a market orientation in their support for farming communities and is adopting with their partners a commodity or market chain approach to the development of prioritized crops or products.

Foodnet and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), through its Rural Agroenterprise Development Project , have been generating information, and developing methods and tools aimed at responding to the entrepreneurial development needs of institutions that support rural communities. At present, Foodnet and CIAT have at their disposition methods and tools for capturing and systematizing market information, identifying market opportunities for small rural producers, and a participatory approach to the design of integrated commodity chain projects. In the process of development are guidelines for the strengthening of local support systems for rural agroenterprises.

Traditionally, the links between agricultural research and development institutions associated with the small farm sector have been weak, with a poor record of adoption of innovations in terms of either technologies or methods, coupled with non-existent means by which the results of successes or failures can be fed back to the research process.

While this deficiency is now recognized and great efforts are being made to redress this situation through proactive collaboration between public and private service providers, in particular the publicly funded research institutions and the NGO sector, there is a need to make a radical change in the way in which knowledge and mutual learning experiences are created and shared between the two groups.

This proposal is an attempt to put into practice a new model of mutual learning between research and development institutions, with a view to enhancing the rate of uptake of innovative concepts, methods and technologies that are aimed at improving the competitiveness of smallholder production. The model is based on a) the identification of a specific development need or demand, and b) the definition, and subsequent implementation, of a set of activities over time that involve a process of learning, putting into practice what has been learnt, reflection and feedback on what has worked and what has not worked, followed by a further cycle of learning, practice, reflection and feedback, etc. This approach differs substantially from the common practice of attempting to 'train' development practitioners in new methods and tools in one-off training courses of short duration.

The proposal

a) Objective
To improve the capacity of CRS personnel and those of its partner institutions to support the development of sustainable links between their target farmers and markets. These links will be achieved through the design of projects for selected products, using a market or commodity chain perspective, that seek to enhance the competitiveness of small-farm production, and a more equitable distribution of benefits along the chain.

CRS-East Africa works in eight countries and has identified with its partners the following commodities with market potential: sesame, chickpea, pigeonpea, groundnut, cassava, sweet potato, lulu (shea), and honey. These commodities will provide a starting point for the present project, but may not constitute the whole range of possible options to be considered in any particular country, or region within a particular country. An on-going project on sesame involving several E African countries will be used as a case study.

b) Partners and their contribution
§ Catholic Research Services/East Africa: Leadership
§ CRS Country Program and Partner Staff in participating countries: Local knowledge and project implementation
§ Foodnet: Market information and analysis skills
§ CIAT: Methods for the participatory design of market opportunity identification and evaluation, and integrated agroenterprise projects

c) Sequence of events
Note: This is a tentative plan based on an 'ideal' sequence', and will be discussed and adjusted during the 'kick-off' workshop based on the resources available and other time commitments of the actors.

Phase 1. Start-up

1.1 Kick-off Workshop to a) review and synthesize the demands and needs of the participants as an input to the subsequent planning of future activities, b) undertake sensitivity and awareness building on the use of participatory approaches and their application to locally-based agroenterprise development c) collectively build a consensus on the principles of a market and enterprise approach, d) develop the methods and tools required for market opportunity identification and evaluation involving farmers, e) plan and budget future activities. Duration and place: 5 days in Nairobi. See Annex 2 for further details of this activity.

Phase 2. Forming an interest group and identifying market opportunities

2.1 Implementation of interest group formation in each selected region of the participating countries, collection and synthesis of base-line and development of an action plan. Initiation of the market opportunity identification and evaluation process. Duration: four months. Place: in country, with backstopping of CIAT and Foodnet.

2.2 Workshop to

a) share experiences on the action undertaken in each country, problems encountered and solutions found,

b) review criteria for selection of enterprise options, and development of the methods and tools for evaluating them. Duration 3 days in Nairobi (or other appropriate location in one of the participating countries).

Phase 3. Evaluating market opportunities and selecting most attractive options

3.1 Implementation of market option characterization and selection process. Duration: 4 months. Place: in country, with back stopping from CIAT and Foodnet.

3.2 Workshop to

a) share experiences on the actions undertaken in each country, problems encountered and solutions found and

b) review process for designing integrated agroenterprise projects, and select appropriate tools for preparing action plans for each product chosen for enterprise development. Duration: 5 days at one of the project sites.

Phase 4. Agroenterprise design and development of action plans

4.1 Implementation of integrated agroenterprise design for selected products in each participating country. Place: In country, with back stopping from CIAT and Foodnet. Duration: 6 months.

4.2 Workshop to

a) share experiences on the actions undertaken in each country, problems encountered and solutions found and

b) review and synthesize demands for services to support market chain development of the selected enterprises in each country,

c) develop a regional and country specific plans to address opportunities for service provision and fill gaps that have been detected. Duration: 5 days in one of the project sites.

Phase 5. Monitoring and evaluation of the process, and synthesis of results into guides for future use

5.1 Develop an appropriate monitoring and evaluation scheme. A small task force will be formed during the 'kick-off' workshop to propose a monitoring and evaluation process to capture information that will provide the basis on which to synthesize the results of the learning alliance and produce guides for the use of practitioners. The task force will report at the second workshop. Duration: four months from end of 'kick-off' workshop.

5.2 Preparation of evaluation report and guidelines for agroenterprise identification and development. Based on the experiences, lessons learned and methodologies developed a guide, or series of guides will be prepared on the process of identifying and developing agroenterprises with rural communities.

The chronogram, Figure 1, summarizes this process.

d) Resources

Time of participants: contribution of their respective institutions.
Travel and per diems for workshops: CRS/CPs and EARO for CRS personnel, Foodnet for Foodnet and CIAT personnel.
Logistics for workshops: CRS/EARO
Field work in participating countries: CRS
Travel for backstopping activities by Foodnet and CIAT personnel to countries: CRS/EARO

Into the future

Should this process prove successful, it should result in a group of CRS and CRS partners with the capacity to replicate the process with others.