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  • Food Procurment Supporting Smallholder Systems

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    Institutional procurement of commodities from smallholder farmers in developing countries has the potential to shift producers from relatively low value farm-gate sales to markets which offer a premium for high quality, aggregated commodity. The World Food Programme’s Purchase for Progress (WFP P4P) is a twenty country, five-year pilot project which couples the purchasing power of, what is in many locations, the largest food buyer in the country with capacity building of farmer organizations in production, post-harvest handling, quality standards, accounting, and leadership. Smallholder farmers who engage in contracts with WFP through the P4P program exhibit a shift away from traditionally resilient cropping patterns and practices toward the WFP basket of commodities, prompting investments in selected seed and agrochemical inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. Using household-level surveys, farmers organization records, and focus groups discussions in Burkina Faso and Rwanda, this study seeks to understand how P4P has impacted agricultural practices, marketing decisions, and livelihoods with the objective of identifying how smallholder procurement initiatives can enable sustainable social-ecological systems which are resilient to market and production shocks. Preliminary findings suggest that while the availability of a high quality marketing channel increases producer income through contract sales and upward pressure on farm-gate prices, dietary diversity scores and food security at the household level does not necessarily improve. In addition, crop intensification programs may diminish adaptive capacity through increased producer debt as well as compromised water and soil quality.

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    Institutional procurement of commodities from smallholder farmers in developing countries has the potential to shift producers from relatively low value farm-gate sales to markets which offer a premium for high quality, aggregated commodity. The World Food Programme’s Purchase for Progress (WFP P4P) is a twenty country, five-year pilot project which couples the purchasing power of, what is in many locations, the largest food buyer in the country with capacity building of farmer organizations in production, post-harvest handling, quality standards, accounting, and leadership. Smallholder farmers who engage in contracts with WFP through the P4P program exhibit a shift away from traditionally resilient cropping patterns and practices toward the WFP basket of commodities, prompting investments in selected seed and agrochemical inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. Using household-level surveys, farmers organization records, and focus groups discussions in Burkina Faso and Rwanda, this study seeks to understand how P4P has impacted agricultural practices, marketing decisions, and livelihoods with the objective of identifying how smallholder procurement initiatives can enable sustainable social-ecological systems which are resilient to market and production shocks. Preliminary findings suggest that while the availability of a high quality marketing channel increases producer income through contract sales and upward pressure on farm-gate prices, dietary diversity scores and food security at the household level does not necessarily improve. In addition, crop intensification programs may diminish adaptive capacity through increased producer debt as well as compromised water and soil quality.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    12 views10 pages

    Food Procurment Supporting Smallholder Systems

    Uploaded by

    smosterloh
    Institutional procurement of commodities from smallholder farmers in developing countries has the potential to shift producers from relatively low value farm-gate sales to markets which offer a premium for high quality, aggregated commodity. The World Food Programme’s Purchase for Progress (WFP P4P) is a twenty country, five-year pilot project which couples the purchasing power of, what is in many locations, the largest food buyer in the country with capacity building of farmer organizations in production, post-harvest handling, quality standards, accounting, and leadership. Smallholder farmers who engage in contracts with WFP through the P4P program exhibit a shift away from traditionally resilient cropping patterns and practices toward the WFP basket of commodities, prompting investments in selected seed and agrochemical inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. Using household-level surveys, farmers organization records, and focus groups discussions in Burkina Faso and Rwanda, this study seeks to understand how P4P has impacted agricultural practices, marketing decisions, and livelihoods with the objective of identifying how smallholder procurement initiatives can enable sustainable social-ecological systems which are resilient to market and production shocks. Preliminary findings suggest that while the availability of a high quality marketing channel increases producer income through contract sales and upward pressure on farm-gate prices, dietary diversity scores and food security at the household level does not necessarily improve. In addition, crop intensification programs may diminish adaptive capacity through increased producer debt as well as compromised water and soil quality.

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    of 10

    Harnessing regional and local food

    procurement to build resilient


    smallholder agricultural systems
    Prepared by Sharon Amani (Arizona State University) for
    Resilience Conference 2014
    Le Corum
    Montpellier, France
    3-8 May 2014
    Presentation outline
    Brief overview of WFPs smallholder procurement pilot project
    Research questions
    Smallholder procurement and resilience
    Research objectives, constraints, and outcomes
    Frameworks for analysis
    WFPs Local and Regional Food Procurement (LRP), 1985-2010
    Source: Purchase for Progress: A Primer WFP, 2012
    In 2013,
    WFP distributed
    over 3.5 million MT of food
    to 97 million beneficiaries
    across 80 countries.
    Purchase for Progress (P4P) overview
    5 year, 20 country pilot program
    3 objectives:
    1. Build smallholder farmer (SHF) capacity to produce and sell high-quality staples
    2. Provide assured demand of the largest food aid buyer in the world
    3. Share learnings on pro-SHF procurement practices
    Available data:
    Household
    Farmers Organization
    Traders
    4 impact assessment countries
    Heavy on production, economic impacts
    Light on social impacts
    Missing environmental impacts
    Research questions
    Which SHF households are participating in institutional sales?
    (Barrett, 2008), (Jayne, 2006)
    How does participating in collective marketing to institutional
    markets impact:
    Agricultural practices: use of improved, seeds, fertilizer, herbicides,
    pesticides; changes in land allocations
    Households: investments, storage, marketing behavior
    Social Dynamics: intra- and inter-household gender dynamics, inequality
    Environment: water run-off, eutrophication, soil organic matter,
    Human health: improper application of inputs, bioaccumulation, disease
    rates
    Do SHF sales to institutions improve resilience?
    Does buying staples from SHF increase resilience?
    Of what?
    Households
    Villages
    Markets
    Agricultural sector
    Watersheds
    Regions (administrative/agroecological)
    To what?
    Food insecurity
    Market exploitation/inefficiency
    Seasonality
    Production shocks
    Climate change
    Economic shocks
    Procurement of staples from SHF is being
    Mainstreamed by WFP
    Adopted by government institutions
    Adopted by other food assistance organizations
    Research objectives, constraints, and outcomes
    Research objectives
    Identify tradeoffs
    Identify appropriate indicators
    Incentivize environmental stewardship
    Promote resilience
    Key constraints
    International Parity Price (IPP)
    Self-selecting participation
    Heterogeneity
    M&E is already too taxing
    Research outcomes
    Design, test, and implement a light M&E module to capture key resilience indicators at
    different levels
    Design heuristic to guide decision-makers through the process of deploying food aid and
    food assistance to support resilience at different levels
    Broaden the definition of food intervention success to include sustainability parameters
    Framework for analysis: Adaptive cycle
    School feeding to improve long-term human capital
    Cash/vouchers to address beneficiary needs
    Emergency operations, food aid
    Lobbying, capacity building,
    LRP/P4P to improve resilience of ag sector
    General food distribution, limited by admin and
    logistics
    Frameworks for analysis: SES + Livelihoods
    Thank you for your attention
    Sharon Amani, PhD candidate
    Arizona State University, School of Sustainability
    sharon.amani@asu.edu

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