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Weâve had a flurry of contributions to beat the close of the consultation. Thank you for your contributions this week and throughout the consultation period. Putting Markets First As we have drawn to a close this week, several contributors have fittingly emphasised the importance of making markets and market opportunities central to (agricultural) development planning and policy. The need for development approaches to be âmarket-drivenâ was emphasised. Despite the fact that much lip-service is nowadays paid to this principle, there is still a âstrong tendency to production oriented measures and strategy and then looking around for a marketâ. One possible reason for this is that decision-makers within agriculture are more likely to have a production background than a marketing one. Where market research is undertaken, there tends to be too much wishful thinking, rather than realism, as reflected (for example) in a tendency to opt for supposed export market âopportunitiesâ at the expense of real opportunities within domestic markets. The cost of ignoring market factors is failed projects and aid recipient countries still have to pay for these even when they were poorly designed in the first place. One contributor suggested that what is needed is an injection of a private sector mindset into public agencies. âEvery project or DFID intervention should include markets and marketing as a central concern.â Another contribution that argued that âthe focus [of agricultural development policy] should be on increasing agricultural production in line with market opportunityâ developed this argument by explaining that interventions should look to increase the efficiency of all stages commodity chain. This includes attention to (for example) high transport costs and storage constraints â both major issues in Africa - and not just to production issues. Similar comments were made from a CIS / Central Asian perspective: the importance of facilitating trade development and taking a systems perspective (including looking to add value locally and promoting âintegrated clustersâ of agri-food enterprises) were both highlighted. The medium-long term perspective of the previous contribution was endorsed by this contributor and by another who argued (with particular reference to Africa) that: âit is sustained input over many years which is required to engender capacity to meet change and dynamism in the world with change and dynamism from Africaâ Farmer Organisations and Linking Farmers to Markets Farmer organisations were not the main focus of any contributions this week, but were mentioned in several cases. These generally (if not always) recognised the role that farmer associations have to play in development strategies, whilst also recognising that past experience with farmer organisations has been mixed and that âcapable or professional business leadership and real commitment from membersâ are critical to success. Reflecting the theme of value addition that has occurred several times this week (as something that both states and farmers should aspire to), one contributor argued that: âthe farmer should ideally own more of the value chain than his production if he is not to end up with a subsistence rate of returnâ. Farmer collective action is one way to achieve this. As in previous weeks, however, there were also contributions extolling the virtues of private service providers (e.g. suppliers of inputs, informal credit, output traders, millers) and questioning whether farmer organisations could provide such services to their members as efficiently as these private suppliers. This week it was pointed out that private service providers are often ex-farmers and it was suggested that they exist in a âsymbiotic associationâ with farmers in their community, rather than gaining through exploitative relationships. Helping them will, therefore, also help the farmers whom they serve. Whilst the debate on farmer organisations and private service providers has at times been (unnecessarily) polarised during the consultation, some middle ground was established this week. Drawing particularly on Latin American experience, one contributor urged caution in promoting farmer collective active to replace private service providers (although there will be occasions when this is a good strategy) and suggested that a more common aim should be to increase the bargaining power and skills of (organised) farmers in dealing with such service providers. The concept of âsymbiotic associationâ was also extended to clusters of private businesses by a couple of contributors. One pointed out that thinking this way helps to dismantle another unhelpful and artificial barrier â between rural and urban areas and their development. One of the messages that made reference to farmer organisations drew on CIATâs experience with rural business development in Latin America, Africa and most recently Asia. Pro-active rural business development is a necessary complement to creating an enabling environment for agricultural and enterprise development. CIATâs rural business development activities seek to âstrengthen the business and market orientation of small-scale farmer associations through business training and coachingâ, building the capacity of small-scale farmers to diversify their production activities both on- and off-farm (according to opportunity), whilst not neglecting food security concerns. The experience with rural business development has important implications for the orientation of extension activity. However, âproviding RBDS imply high transaction costs [rural households also need first to be persuaded of the benefits of such services] and thus market forces are not very eager to fill this vacuumâ. Hence, some subsidy for such activities is probably necessary at least for an initial period. By contrast, one sceptical view of market information was offered. This questioned the sustainability of many current data collection efforts and also questioned who the target audience is where new technologies (e.g. internet, SMS) are used to disseminate information. Extension agents may well benefit and be able to pass on what they have gained to farmers, but poor farmers will not access the information directly. Similarly, disseminating wholesale price information (as commonly happens) may be of more direct relevance to traders than to farmers, particularly if the latter are already tied to particular traders through credit links. According to this contribution, disseminating market intelligence about longer-term trends may be more valuable to producers. However, even this was considered an âoptimisticâ view. Finite limits to rural householdsâ ability to supply labour in response to new opportunities Access to Land and Water We received one substantial contribution on land access and rights this week, with a particular focus on Africa. This emphasised that secure rights to land are important for many of Africa's poor, both to reduce their vulnerability (to various forms of asset loss / dispossession) and to give them a secure base on which to build (including assisting access to finance). The titling debate is moving on from the situation portrayed in my opening Moderatorâs comments. On the one hand, more efficient (decentralised) ways of recognising title are being developed in response to justified (pro-poor) criticism of previous approaches. On the other, there is increasing recognition that, whilst traditional tenure regimes still function fine in many places, they are failing to cope with conflicts arising from high land pressure in peri-urban areas, southern Africa's communal lands, west Africa's cocoa belt (where there are large numbers of immigrants) and also with other sources of conflict over rights (e.g. threats to land used by pastoralists). Hence, a more active approach to land rights does have to be taken. Land redistribution does also need to be tackled in some countries both to assist poverty reduction efforts and to reduce political tension. Purely market-based approaches are generally rejected by beneficiary representatives, so "a mixed approach involving both state and market" was encouraged. Before its recent reorganisations began, DFID had developed a reasonable understanding of these complex issues. They were, therefore, urged to resume their active role in international (as well as country-level) discussions on land policy in Africa, to channel the pressure for more ideologically-based land policy towards policies that will be genuinely good for the poor. Reinforcing the message about asset distribution, we were referred to the findings of a cross-country study conducted by IWMI of irrigation and its relationship to poverty in Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan and Vietnam. This study found that farm performance in terms of output per hectare was higher on the more equally distributed and also smaller land holdings on studied irrigation schemes in (South)East Asia than on the South Asian schemes. Water access was found to broadly follow access to land within the schemes. The report commends the "distribute first and grow" approach pursued in China and Vietnam as being more successful than the South Asian approach to try simply to "grow first" and address (re)distribution later. State Capacity and Accountability Two contributors this week urged DFID not to assume that the state could or should play too big a role in agricultural development, particularly in Africa. The âlimited resources and over-commitmentâ syndrome means that the public sector often ends up as a hindrance, not a help, to the development process. At the same time, DFID was urged to ensure accountability for use of funds that it provides to other organisations. Providing funds either to Ministries of Agriculture or to multilateral development agencies without adequate safeguards is an inexcusable waste of scarce resources. One of the advantages of projectised aid is that greater accountability for use of funds can be built in than is the case with direct budget support. Personal Summaries of the Theme Discussions Four list members have posted to the Economic Opportunity theme helpful summaries of the main points that they think DFID should take away from the discussion within the e-consultation. Dick Tinsley (May 20th) reiterates calls for DFID to commission reviews of some unresolved questions (e.g. the cost of private service provision and the sustainability of farmer associations post-donor support), suggests priority areas for policy dialogue with national governments to create more opportunities for private service development and discusses the respective roles of different service providers in the provision of different support services to producers. James Biscoe (May 25th) focuses on ground that DFID should cover in its dialogue with national (aid recipient) governments and makes suggestions for long-term technical assistance that DFID could offer to build service provision capacity in the countries concerned. Andy Bullock (May 26th) considers what is required to turn DFIDâs renewed commitment to agriculture into operational reality and then where else DFID should be focusing (e.g. CAADP, national poverty reduction strategy processes, EU, G8) to ensure that effective agricultural development policies are implemented. Vinay Chand (May 27th) emphasises that adding value within the agricultural value chain for the benefit of small farmers should be the goal and suggests priorities to ensure that as much support as possible for smallholder agriculture actually reaches the ultimate beneficiaries. Several of Vinayâs specific points are covered elsewhere in this summary. Moving Forward Finally, whilst the process moderator (May 27th) has indicated how the contributions to the consultation will be synthesised and used, a contribution from Society for the Underprivileged in India has pointed out that relatively few grassroots NGOs, let alone individual beneficiaries of DFID activities, have participated in the e-forum. DFID are encouraged to find other ways to seek the views of grassroots NGOs as they continue to develop their agriculture policy. Personally, I have very much enjoyed moderating the Economic Opportunity discussions. I apologise to those of you whose contributions or views I have misrepresented at any point. I hope that, on balance, my input has assisted rather than detracted from the debate within the theme. Best wishes, Colin Poulton
Please visit dfid-agriculture-consultation.nri.org.