Smallholder Market Access
The economic and political context of agricultural
activity has undergone profound changes. Market liberalizations, WTO
constraints on domestic support policies and regional integration
processes, have changed the agricultural marketing system. Price
fluctuations for staple food crops are increasingly de-linked from
domestic production dynamics and seasonality. Especially, smallholder
farmers face the challenge of how to get access to these changing
markets. In the face of these changes, one pre-requisite is for farmers
to set up and strengthen their economic organisation.
By articulating national farmers’ organisations in
developing countries with researchers and consultants, the ESFIM
programme will strengthen the capacities of national farmers’
organisations in developing pro-active policy proposals. Proposals that
will be adapted to their specific national context, but enriched with
the experiences of other farmers’ organisations inside and
outside their country.
This ESFIM research and policy development programme
focuses on successful and replicable regulatory policies and
institutional arrangements that can empower smallholder farmers in
markets. It will have the farmers organizations in the driving seat:
for identifying research priorities and for learning and reflecting on
research outputs. ESFIM will build on the outputs of other research
programmes like Regoverning Markets, GFAR – LSFM, and research in
the ECART Institutes.
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