MARKET BASED APPROACHES CAPABILITY STATEMENT
Context Smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa number around 33 million, represent 80% of all farms in the region, and contribute up to 90% of food production in some sub-Saharan African countries. They are often net buyers of food and very vulnerable to food price increases and spikes. Across the globe agriculture is a catalyst for growth and the development of essential infrastructure - helping smallholder farmers step up t o farming as a business and growing market opportunities of rural areas is key to our strategy. The poor are dependent on markets for their livelihoods and their participation in markets depends on value chains (VC). They are also largely disadvantaged by the way that most market systems operate. An improved market system offers more opportunities and sustainable benefits to the poor by enabling them to find their own way out of poverty. All smallholder farmers are dependent on market systems for their livelihoods, including often complex regional, local, subsistence and bartering markets. Farmers are often forced to trade within market systems that, as individual farmers, they have very little power to influence. Poorer farmers are particularly disadvantaged within market systems because of their very low level of bargaining power. Our agricultural work analyses the markets that smallholder farmers work within, so that farmers themselves can understand how they can benefit more from the markets they sell or trade within. We work with farmers, their organisations and other value chain actors to enable systemic change. This is a sustainable way to work with farmers, enabling them to find their own way out of poverty. Markets, and agricultural product value chains, are complex systems, involving multiple actors and incentives, constantly changing due to internal and external factors. Market systems approaches must therefore engage with a range of actors; from large-scale business investors to small businesses and informal sector actors.
Impact in West Africa (2017-2018) 67,885 farmers with increased yields 41,978 people that have established or improved their business with UP’s support 87,372 people with increased cash incomes 154 women’s garden groups (17,650 women) in the Gambia have increased capacity in nutritious cooking, production and processing.
7020 smallholders trained in farm enterprise management in Ghana