A Market Oriented
Agriculture Approach

These products must be of high quality, are available at agreeable prices and of the consistency and quantity expected.

However despite the unprecented speed and diverse ways with which the agricultural market environment is changing, small-scale producers, traders and processors have largely been unable to take advantage of available opportunities, simply because they lack the capacity to meet market demands for quality, quantity and timeliness.

This big-picture view needs to be adopted for despite the unprecedented speed and diverse ways with which the agricultural market environment is changing, small-scale producers, traders and processors have largely been unable to take advantage of available opportunities - simply because they lack the capacity to meet market demands.

This constraint of inadequate access to information, understanding and networks will be highlighted here with the intention of drawing relevant attention to its solution.

Given farmers are the producers of value, these will be insignificant unless that value is preserved, added-to and delivered to markets in the manner and timeliness required of it.

But of course without public support by way of government intervention in redefining assistance policy and setting the general environment based on an ever evolving need for continual monitoring, these partial attempts will be suboptimal.

It is therefore imperative that the value-chain players involved be also looked at and supported - with a view to leveraging all efforts.

Who Are These Value-Players?

While past models of development presupposed that farmer competitiveness lay simply in using the latest technology, the market oriented agriculture view recognizes support is also needed for each link in the value chain.

Input suppliers need support in determining what inputs to provide based on local conditions, market prices and demand, producers need support in getting organized by forming regional organizations to better achieve desired goals, traders and processors need support in infrastructure, value-adding and packaging innovations, and marketers need support in product information.

These needs are examples of what is required and if they elicit required policy changes than we will have moved the rural poor another step out of the morass they're in.

Despite growing focus on market oriented agriculture however, public investment has been skewed overwhelmingly toward farmers alone. It is now time to reevaluate, as support should be offered to those actors offering the best leverage to overcoming bottlenecks and benefiting all stakeholders.

This shift in perspective may be easier said than done, as conventional farmer support tend to distrust private sector actors such as traders, processors and marketers.

While middlemen are portrayed as the bane of the poor, many of the rural poor are themselves trying to become middlemen.

Strengthening Producers

Such an association's benefit would be:

- improved quality, consistency and incomes;
- a unified voice on issues of common concern;
- enabling periodic conferences to highlight areas of concern;
- greater clout with policy makers, to name a few.

To this end, interested farmers can download a research questionnaire on forming your regional 'product association' by clicking here (a new window opens) to begin your market oriented agriculture journey.

Download this form, photocopy and distribute to fellow farmers for their feedback and the next step. The questionnaire covers the big picture on assessing interest for an organizing body, what structure to be adopted, support and membership fees. Yes, things cost money and the sooner we appreciate that the sooner we'll be thinking like businessmen/ladies.

District and provincial associations are suggested to be formed - with the use of different copies of the same form - as village farmers because of the fewer numbers can amalgamate as clubs instead.

First build your district associations, appoint office bearers who can then choose representation to the provincial association.

Provincial associations in turn will form national bodies that deals at a higher level.

We can thus have the 'Vuna District Taro Farmers Association' comprising individual farmers of the three villages in Vuna, being a member of the 'Naitasiri Taro Farmers Association' comprised of other Naitasiri province's district members.

Can I please have some feedback on the form below then, as concerned attempts at making 2011 a year of resolve and raising our exporting credence?

Me bula ko Viti!!!

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