Regional Markets

Regional Markets for Local Development
a key element of nutrition for people and livestock. On average, groundnuts are a
much more profitable crop than cereals, the main alternative crop. The main objective
of the programme is to help smallholders access quality seeds to improve their
productivity. In addition, small processing and business units are being set up—with
a particular focus on women—to add value to the groundnuts. It helps communities
to combat poverty and progressively improve their lives and livelihoods. Also
here, organising farmers into groups and associations, like the groundnut producers
association CCPA (Cadre Concertation des Producteurs d’Arachide), yielded positive
results. CCPA takes part in the negotiations to set groundnut prices and also
influences the provision of subsidies by the state. As a result CCPA has become a
credible farmers organisation (with over 5,000 members) and can access credit from
the national agricultural development bank.
Also in Bangladesh, the mix of organising farmers, providing seed multiplication facilities,
and adding value through processing and sales is the preferred strategy. FoSHoL
aims to enhance food and livelihood security of poor and marginalised households in
the Kurigram subdistrict. One of the key objectives is to provide quality rice seed by
engaging smallholder farmers in seed production. FoSHoL ensures seed security and
a stable local seed supply through participatory approaches. FoSHoL’s members are
small-scale farmers with less than 0.2 hectares. The initiative generates incomes for
many different types of small-scale farmers: seed growers, seed processors and traders.
Moreover, it also improves income and increases food security for the farmers who purchase
and use FoSHoL seeds for rice cultivation. This increases the strength of the local
production structure, and adds to local economic multipliers and growth.
The cases above demonstrate that the number of farmers involved can vary considerably.
It seems that when the product and market requirements in the value chain become
increasingly more sophisticated, the participation of smallholders drops, in favour of a
smaller number of larger-scale farmers. This is a commonly noted process, even in these
food commodity markets, as exemplified by the TAHA case. In the Kilimanjaro region
of Tanzania, TAHA works with both urban and rural small-, medium- and large-scale
farmers to improve household incomes through increased vegetable production and
employment. With several international airports nearby it is an export-oriented operation,
which in turn also explains the preference for working with large-scale producers
who can take risks. Currently, small-scale producers are outvoted by a few large-scale
farmers within TAHA. Nevertheless, TAHA is assisting their small-scale members to
make the transition from subsistence farming to commercial production. It remains to
be seen how easily poor and small-scale farmers will manage this transition.
We started this section with the question regarding the opportunities that local markets
offer for the inclusion of small-scale producers. The initiatives presented did provide many
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