Regional Markets

4 Opportunities for development
activities, such as food crop production, animal husbandry and small and medium-size
enterprises. Once the coffee market recovered, farmers returned to coffee production.
The poorer farmers mostly diversify to spread the risks, often at the cost of reduced
productivity but profiting from a more stable business model. In Tanzania more than
90% of coffee output is produced by 400,000 smallholders. In the Kilimanjaro region
there are an estimated 250,000 coffee growers. Similar to other projects covered in this
publication, TechnoServe focuses on smallholder farmers with limited resources, and
employs a group-based approach, who rely on more than one market to profit from
opportunities in export markets, without losing the safety nets of the local food commodity
market. Taking into account that pro-poor development is about securing economic
power and increasing producer control over their crops, the coffee case shows
the effective combination of organisation, innovation and quality improvements.
Sometimes, the very same crop can be both an important food as well as a cash crop,
and in exceptional cases farmers can shift between cash and food production, without
incurring large risks. Such a low-risk situation allows impoverished farmers to engage
in commercial value chains without risking becoming too dependent on cash crop marketing
structures and volatile prices. C:AVA aims to develop new cassava value chains
and thus create new market opportunities. Cassava is an important food security crop
and a staple crop for vulnerable groups. As was demonstrated, C:AVA explores the possibilities
of producing High Quality Cassava Flour (HQCF) as a competitive alternative
for wheat flour on the rural food market. Striking a balance between quality, price and
the continuously changing market demand is challenging, but the project continues to
offer both food security and cash cropping opportunities. C:AVA expects the number of
smallholders benefiting from sun-dried HQCF to reach 1,000 by the end of 2015, with
a potential for expansion to 7,500. Another 6,000 smallholders are estimated to benefit
from the artificially dried HQCF value chain by the end of 2015. This case shows
the promise of linking poor producers to larger markets; however, involving smallholder
farmers in new value chains may also increase the risk for private sector investors. The
introduction of new products and new technologies (in this case HQCF and artificial
dryers) carries higher risks and requires a careful balancing act between the windfall
for smallholder and industry. Especially when large-scale industries and processors are
involved in the value chain, it should be taken into account that a substantial part of the
value addition might go to the private sector instead of the small-scale farmers.
A very similar case in terms of product type (dual purpose food and cash crop)
and combined approach (seed provision, adding value by processing and organising
farmers) is the groundnuts project in Senegal. The number of farmers involved is
similar to the C:AVA case, although in Senegal they are primarily women smallholders.
The Fatick and Kaolack regions are part of the former ‘groundnut basin’
where groundnut farming is the main source of cash income for farmers, but also
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