Horticulture and Agro Exports Systemic Change Pathways
Septmeber 2015 MDF Fiji Version-1
Summary MDF Fiji Country Strategy Poverty Fiji is a middle-income country. Nevertheless, 35 per cent of Fiji’s population is classified as poor and/or vulnerable to income shocks. Poverty is caused by and/or concentrated in: Traditional crops for export such as sugarcane and copra have become less profitable. The domestic market for food crops is mostly saturated; farmers grow a variety of crops in small quantities and are not very specialized; yields are low. There is a need for new markets for agricultural produce. There is rural-urban drift, which results in urban unemployment (and, in places, a rural labour shortage). Urban services have been expanding, but not enough to absorb all available labour. Employment in manufacturing and processing has been shrinking and only recently started to grow again. There is a need for employment opportunities outside agriculture, especially for lesser-skilled workers. Cyclones and droughts can jeopardize rural livelihoods; regular sources of income and means to save income help households deal with shocks.
Economy With a decline in traditional export crops, in which the state has a strong presence, new growth needs to come from new entrepreneurs and/or new markets. Growth is constraint by: Domestic markets are small; growth needs to be export-led. The local entrepreneurial base is small; indigenous-Fijian businesses are underrepresented. Small, often first-generation businesses have limited access to bank finance and other specialized support services (the Fijian market is too small to support them); entrepreneurs need to perform many business functions in house, while their financial and managerial capacity may be limited. Skilled labour is in short supply. Fiji ranks poorly (160 out of a possible 189) on the World Bank Doing Business index for starting up a new business.
MDF Focus in Fiji Encouraging (mostly export-led, but also tourism-led) diversification and commercialization in agriculture (‘turning farming into a business’). Creating off-farm employment for those who have left the land (in tourism, in processing). Support local entrepreneurship in niche markets (mostly tourism-led, but also export-led).
Develop better business services; improve aspects of the Business Enabling Environment. For example Biosecurity Authority of Fiji which is the regulatory body responsible for monitoring export of horticulture produce and issuing import permits for agro-inputs. Ensure geographic and ethnic inclusion. This will be achieved by working in the following ‘growth engines’ of the Fijian economy – Horticulture and Agro-Exports, Tourism and Related Support Services and Industries, and Export Processing.
Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) All sectors are relevant for WEE, integrated in the systemic change pathways (see below).
Alignment with Government of Fiji Over the last few years the government has pursued a mildly expansionary macroeconomic policy to strengthen investor confidence. In the last five years, the economy has grown steadily; to sustain it the government is emphasizing broad based growth focusing on infrastructure, agriculture, export and tourism. Generating jobs and creating more private sector investment are also key priorities. Such outlook aligns well with MDF works in its three sectors. Within these sectors, MDF is interacting with relevant government agencies, as in Fiji Revenue and Customs Authority (FIRCA), Ministry of Industry & Trade and Tourism, Ministry of Agriculture, Biosecurity Authority of Fiji (BAF) by engaging directly or indirectly through private sector partners. As opportunities, other government agencies would be identified also.
Geographic and ethnic inclusion Fiji is a country where majority of economic activity happens in Viti Levu and in business ownership and managements, indigenous Fijians are underrepresented. Addressing them, within the ambits of the systemic changes being fostered, ensure a greater quality of inclusive impact. Within the three sectors, MDF will have a special focus to support and nurture business growth in other islands including Vanua Levu, Kadavu, Levuka and Taveuni. With indigenous Fijians there is a need to reach out to communities and to small businesses to help nurture such growths. MDF will explore innovative partnerships methods (NGO, CSO, Community bodies) and work in the area of access to finance, among others, to support, develop and promote more indigenous representation.
Note on Systemic Change Areas
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In general, beyond certain traditional sectors like Sugarcane, Copra which show signs of stagnation, Fiji, being a small island economy, has thin, emerging market systems. All three sectors, Horitculture and Agro Export, Tourism and related Services and Support Industries and Export Processing show good potential but at the same are broadly defined. This is done so to ensure that MDF reaches a certain scale of meaningful impact while having commonalities across market dyanamics in each respective sector. The implications therefore are that the systemic changes being envisoned and captured in his document also are necessarily broad and and represent the first tier of change. As a broad rule, it is expected that achieveing a high degree of systemic change is a process that takes around 8 to 10 years from inception. For MDF Fiji, which began its sector work in June 2012, as it goes about implementing partnerships in all three sectors, in line with these envisioned changes, new areas, with more defined needs are already beginning to emerge. Cross sector services like finance, transport, packaging information (media, agriculture and non-agriculture) are picking up with new market entrants but they need to be made more relevant (eg. product development, capacity improvement, promotion) to have a wider inclusive impact. In a similar vein, areas under enabling environment (eg. customs reform, agriculture policy, export strategies, business support and registration) are also emerging where there is potential for impact. Last but not least, infrastructure development (ports, airport strips, jettys, drainage), which could be viewed as embedded elements within each sectors or as a separate area, also has significant potential for inclusive impact. MDF sees it portfolio growing to include these cross sector services as a sector by itself in the coming year (post 2017). Beyond that there are opportunities for MDF Fiji to leverage on its learning in working in Fiji and broaden (if other Pacific DFAT posts are willings) to include other Pacific countries like Solomons and Vanuatu from its Fiji operation.
The MDF Framework for Defining and Populating Pathways to Systemic Change The systemic change pathway explained Competitiveness and change in sectors do not depend only on the actions of MDF. Sectors are complex and are influenced by a wide variety of factors such as global markets, changes in the policy and regulatory environment, the availability and quality of infrastructure, the cultural context and the environment. Some changes introduced by MDF will catch on quickly; others have faced barriers and moved slowly or not at all. MDF must be able to define which change areas it needs to focus on to make growth more robust and inclusive and then monitor progress towards achieving the quality of change that can be called ‘systemic’. For this purpose, MDF developed its Systemic Change Framework as outlined in the figure below. This framework is applied separately to each key strategic change that MDF aims to foster within a sector or market system. The annexes to this Strategic Guidance Note provide a detailed example of how the framework is applied in Fiji.
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MDF Systemic Change Pathway
Application of MDF’s Systemic Change Framework requires a deep understanding of a sector as well as experience working with market players to address constraints to pro-poor growth. The first step in applying the Framework is to develop an inclusive, pro-poor growth strategy for each sector. This sector strategy is typically based in on an Inclusive Analysis of Growth, Poverty and Gender at the sector level combined with a Household Level Analysis of Poverty and Gender Dynamics and defines a vision for inclusive growth as well key constraint areas to inclusive growth. MDF will then proceed to launch partnerships aimed at reducing the constraints identified and unlocking inclusive growth. At the same time, MDF uses the framework outlined above to further define its ‘strategic intent’ for a sector, as accurately as possible given that it will learn more from implementation about what is really needed and realistically feasible. Please refer to MDF’s Strategic Guidance Note on Systemic Change which shows how an inclusive sector growth strategy (for the Horticulture sector in Fiji) feeds into the country strategy, and how systemic change areas support the inclusive sector growth strategy. As mentioned, for each systemic change area, MDF applies the systemic change framework; the introductory section justifies the rationale for identifying the systemic change. Importantly, in time, based on the experience gained from implementing the first partnerships within a sector, it becomes clearer which systemic changes the programme should focus on. As the programme discovers more through implementing its partnerships within the sectors, it becomes clear that some constraint areas appear to be dimensions of, or seem to coalesce around more deepseated problems. MDF then develops a better idea of which changes the market is ready for, and which changes requires more innovative approaches address the problems. Through the interplay between traction gained through partnerships and strategic intent, emerges firmer systemic change areas, which then become the ‘compass’ for programme implementation in the sector. This typically happens around two years into implementation as the first batch of partnerships start to yield results. To help define (and manage, monitor and communicate) the dimensions of change that deserve to be labelled ‘systemic’, MDF asks two fundamental questions: 1) are there appropriate incentives for market players to interact with poor people and to continue, expand and adapt the new business model; and 2) is the adoption and adaptation of the new business model continuing to serve the interests of poor men and women? For each question it has defined three key parameters. The table below reiterates these questions and briefly defines the parameters related to this. It should be noted that the first three parameters refer to the strength of the business case underpinning the change, and other three parameters refer to the beneficiaries of the change. Together they define the quality of change as well as the scale of change, making it truly ‘systemic’.
Parameters with Systemic Change Framework
Questions
Parameters
Definitions
Are there appropriate
Autonomy
Independent action by businesses or other
incentives for the market
market players to adopt and/or improve a
players that interact with poor
business model promoted by the programme.
people to continue, expand and adapt the new business model?
Sustainability
The extent to which the business model promoted by the programme is sustainable and/or profitable.
Resilience
The extent to which the market system supporting the business model can adapt to stay competitive, take advantage of new opportunities and recover from adverse shocks.
Is the adoption and adaptation
Inclusiveness
The extent and depth to which the business
of the new business model
model as practiced by market players includes
continuing to serve the
and benefits the target group
interests of poor people?
Scale
The proportion of the potential target group that gets the goods, services and/or jobs promoted by the programme.
Women’s
The extent to which the business model
Economic
includes and benefits women with respect to
Empowerment
income, access to opportunities, access to assets, life chances, jobs, manageable workloads and decision making power.
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Then, by asking these two questions using these six parameters, the framework seeks the programme to define a ‘beginning state’ for each parameter. This is the state of the sector or market system at the start of the implementation process (‘at the beginning of the pathway to systemic change’). Once the programme is being implemented it defines the key market or regulatory gaps it seeks to address to make the market system work better. This is followed by a description of the ‘end state’ for the same parameter. It outlines how the programme wants to see the market system work. If this state is achieved, the work is done. The end state should be defined as per market needs to work well. Therefore, it may occur that the programme defines an end state that it cannot achieve given its current resources and implementation window (contract duration). This makes the Systemic Change Framework a management tool not only for the programme, but also for its investors. It starts to define the ‘total potential’, the ‘total need’ and the ‘total time and resourcing’ required to meet those needs. As mentioned, the space between the beginning state and end state is the gap in the market system that needs to be filled, the pathway to systemic change that needs to be populated. MDF identifies four stages of progression along this pathway, captured for each parameter. These stages are ‘initial’, intermediate, ‘advanced’ and ‘matured’. In time, MDF will make progress against these parameters, but not at an equal pace (there may be very inclusive partnerships that lack scale and to some extent resilience, and partnerships that are strong on autonomy and scale, but less on WEE). Each partnership design needs to be strong and sustainable enough to be considered for co-investment by MDF, but no partnership is perfect. By managing its portfolio MDF will ensure quality of change at scale in a systemic manner. Nevertheless, MDF does not expect that all changes will reach the same level of institutionalisation in the market system within the life of the programme. Some changes may only reach an initial or intermediate level of systemic change, while others may reach an advanced or matured level of change. Using the knowledge and understanding gained from several years of experience, MDF can project the level of systemic change it expects to catalyse two years beyond the life of the programme.1 MDF assesses the progress of systemic change against these projections and analyses why change is happening faster or slower than expected. This helps the programme to better understand market dynamics and adjust its strategies appropriately. Finally, for each parameter, MDF will describe the beginning state and end state of where it is situated in moving forward along the pathway to achieve systemic change. This helps the reader
1
The processes of change that MDF catalyses during the programme will continue beyond the end of the programme. MDF uses the DCED recommended two years post programme timescale for its projections.
understand how far MDF has progressed in terms of achieving its strategy objective, with whom (which partners), and why. As implementation and insight progresses, MDF periodically updates these stories (as well as, if needed, the desired ‘end state’).
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Horticulture and Agro-Export Scale, constraints and opportunities Depending on the source there are between 65,000 and 75,000 farming households in Fiji; it is estimated that about one third is commercially oriented.2 In addition to this there are approximately 51,000 persons employed in the sector. Horticulture and Agro-Export, broadly defined, targets the commercially oriented farmers in horticulture (including those moving out of sugarcane into horticulture) as well as those farmers involved in a range of in export crops (such as root crops, noni and virgin coconut oil) as well as those employed by these farmers or in the processing industries around the farming sector. Constraints and opportunities in the sector are as follows: There is demand for Fijian produce overseas, mainly from the Pacific/Fijian community in Australia, New Zealand, USA and Canada, but also from other customers (e.g., China). There are around 25 exporters involved in exports, each sourcing from an average of 150 farmers. While they have the ability to be major ‘pull factor’ in agriculture, they struggle to fulfill orders because of a range of issues related to their own business management, prevailing farming practices as well as the environment in which they have to operate. Farmers lack access to information on cultivation practices as well as the inputs (e.g., seed varieties) to meet export demand and standards. Crop cover and irrigation are hardly used. In terms of farm labour, certain subsectors (e.g., sugarcane) and areas (e.g., Vanua Levu) are reporting labour shortages. The government extension service is seen as a key provider of inputs (mainly seeds) and information, but is under-resourced and under-staffed. The agricultural input business is nascent; there is only one seed importer, one crop care importer, and a few retailers (less than 20, of which only 4 are specialized). The availability of farm implements is limited.
The position of the poor in the sector The poor come from both ethnicities: indigenous Fijian and indo Fijians. For the indigenous, other than the constraints stated above, communal obligations and long distances to markets contribute to their lower income levels. For the Indo-Fijians, access to land, choices of crops are underlying specific reasons for their poverty. With such low levels of production, farm labour also struggle to get
2
Ministry of Agriculture, Fiji “National Agriculture census Fiji” 2009
consistent work. In general, farmers who focus on commercial fruit and vegetable production tend to be better off than those that do root crops because the former fetches a better price and can be produced in different seasons. With sugarcane, factors such land lease expiry, rising inputs costs, low productivity have all compounded to create a very difficult picture for the small holder sugarcane farmers.
The position of women in the sector Women from both ethnicities are very much involved in agriculture. With indigenous Fijians, they are involved as farm labour and retailing of produce while Indo Fijian in addition to retailing of produce, work more as family labour in harvesting and post-harvest activities (such as grading and sorting). Women’s workload is around 30% more than men. Majority of the workforce in Exporter’s premises tend to be women, involved in processing of agro produce. Access to proper skill, farming tools and knowledge are key limiting factors for women to help them increase their farm productivity and income. Decision making is very much a shared process in the farming household. Hence both men and women discuss among themselves to decide where and how to spend their income from farming.
Systemic changes in Horticulture and Agro-Export Horticulture generates employment for over 50,000 women and men in Fiji and is one of the key economic drivers for rural and overall, Fiji. Based on the constraints and opportunities, listed above MDF has identified two pathways for systemic change in Horticulture and Agro-Export which are listed below. These pathways have been formed based on the MDF experience in this sector for the last four years. : 1. Exporters work more closely with farmers providing access to inputs and/or extension services to ensure supplies of required quality and quantity of agro produce in a timely manner. 2. Agro Input providers expand their reach and/or diversify their product base to better serve the interests of small farmers in Fiji in a commercial manner. Post 2021~3, as such changes mature and have established themselves, new areas that could be evolving but not limited to, are as follows
With inputs relating to seeds, saplings, suckers for rootcrops, agriculture lime, working well, demands for other inputs “Crop care” and “information” would become more defined. In crop care it will be focus on affordability, distribution, promotion and usage; with information,
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systemic change focusing on information channels only (telecom and media companies) would be emerging Creating more investments in agriculture infrastructure (irrigation/drainage/markets) through public sector support, private sector initative or a mixture of both. In terms of agriculture risk reduction (farm labour shortage, adverse weather), developing a more inclusive farm implements and mechanization market for farmers in Fiji. Supporting “Voice”. A stable sustainable growth for a sector in enhanced when mechaisms are in place to ensure needs of the sectors is heard by the appropriate stakeholders. With MDF’s work in the current systemic change areas discussed below, fundamental blocks of having the sector organized will be in place and hence make it ideal for MDF to work on getting consolidating this sector organization and promote a more conducive environment for sector growth.
Pathway 1: Exporters work more closely with farmers providing access to inputs and/or extension services to ensure supplies of required quality and quantity of agro produce in a timely manner. Background (‘before picture’) Exporters, majority of which are located in Viti Levu, provide a crucial link between production and demand and have the incentive to reach out to farmers to meet the unmet demand from overseas markets. Most of the fruit and vegetable exporters are Indo Fijian owned whereas those that do root crops export tend to have some Indigenous Fijian ownership. However, in general all the exporters are not well organised; most of them are first generation businesses. They lack backward linkage and engage in spot buying from farmers instead of more organized sourcing, struggling to source export quality produce, have inadequate cold storage and processing facilities and face issues in meeting quarantine protocol requirements. Poor handling, grading and packaging at all levels also contributes to high post-harvest wastage. Absence of cost effective, reliable inter-island connections, poor airfreight services, and poor access to finance also impedes growth for the exporters. There are no acceptable bodies or association that can raise issues faced by exporters. The Ministry of Agriculture has a strong focus on increasing production and provides extension support to farmers. However, in the field, as the extension officers efforts extend to assist farmers access end markets, their role morphs into “buying agents” for exporters and thereby distorts the markets. Exporters feel reluctant to invest in supply chain because they think they can rely on the extension officer to ensure supply. Women are part of the rural households and are involved in agriculture production; as unpaid family labour (Indo Fijians), paid labor and as retailers (both Indigenous Fijians). Majority of the workers in the exporters processing facility (engaged for processing) are females.
Anticipated ‘end picture’ (when markets work well) More than 70% of horticulture exporters (root crops, fruits and vegetables) operate a vertically integrated system, whereby they advise farmers of their requirements and inputs, address their problems and promote more quantity and quality of production among female and male farmers. They also invest in farm implements and mechanization and have established proper cold storage and processing facilities. Exporters’ reach extends to farming households in different parts of Viti Levu, Vanua Levu, Levuka and Taveuni. The Ministry of Agriculture only focuses on providing information to farmers but now adopts and acknowledges different mediums including broadcast (print and electronic) and ICT based platforms (telecoms) to reach farmers. Presences of cost effective inter-island connectivity, better air freight services, better access to finance through market based advisory services also help exporters improve their connectivity and growth. Lastly there is representative body for the exporters that the Government consults with, in matters relating to agriculture and exports. The work of MDF on exporters is unlikely to have an influence on the ethnic ownerships of these enterprises; however with fruit and vegetables being more led by Indo-Fijian farmers and root crops by indigenous Fijian, both ethnicities of farmers are expected to benefit.
Expected Pathway to Systemic Change (likely number, types and focus of partnerships)
MDF aims to work with at least half of the existing exporters to improve their backward linkages in terms of number of farmers reached, volume of produce sourced, and services and inputs provided through or in sync with these backward linkages to demonstrate and sufficiently institutionalize this way of working. A special focus would be made to work with some of the larger exporters primarily because most of them have very weak institutional structure and process which limits their growth and sourcing from farmers. Disseminating their success through media coverage would also be pursued to encourage more crowding in. Havind said that, the influence of scale agents (lead farms, media) is still limited in Fiji and hence the focus on replicating partnerships with low levels of crowding in expected. Expected Partnership: 8~10; crowding 2~4 Support establishment of cost effective inter island shipping. While there is significant demand for such services, the thinness in the market does not make it viable for many players to operate in this area, hence no crowding is expected: Expected Partnership: 2~3; no crowding-in expected. Support government consultation with private sector relating to agro-export and explore ways to develop/strengthen mechanism (Business Membership Organization [BMO] formation, Media coverage) whereby issues faced by the exporters are raised with the relevant authorities. Expected Partnership: 3~4; no crowding-in expected.
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On access to finance see the systemic change pathway 2 in Export Processing
Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Economic Empowerment No specific partnership focusing on WEE is expected. Women are part of the farming households and are actively involved in agriculture production. Furthermore decision making in these households are a shared process between the male and female members of the households. Hence increase in income for the household, directly supports empowerment for the females in the households. For fruits and vegetable, which are more led by Indo-Fijian families, women are more part of family labour, working on crop care, harvesting, grading and sorting. In some households, they also are responsible for procuring the seeds. For root crops, where the indigenous Fijians are more dominant, the women also act as paid farm labour, for crop care, grading and sorting; harvesting is usually done by men. For all the partnerships under this pathways, WEE will be embedded in all. Some of the more progressive exporters (<5) as part of MDF partnerships are expected to invest in farm implements and mechanization and make it accessible to their women and men farmers. With such access, women are expected to witness an increase in productivity and income without a matching increasing in their work load. Both work load, and increase income of the household are directly connected to the empowerment of women in agriculture.
Results in time Over a 10 year period (starting 2012) around 8,000 men and women farmers (indigenous and indoFijian farmers) mostly focusing on root crops, fruits and vegetables located primarily in Viti Levu, Vanua Levu, Levuka, and Taveuni will benefit in terms of increased price and/or production. Majority of these farmers will come from working with some of the large exporters. In total around 500 FTE jobs are created and considering that more females are employed in exporter premises, the number of female jobs is expected to be around 300. Additionally with farming households reporting increased income, female within those households experience increased decision making power.
Feasibility, efficiency and risks There is large Pacific diaspora living in developed countries including Australia, New Zealand, US and Canada. They fuel the demand for Fijian agriculture produce in those markets. With domestic markets growth prospect being limited, connecting to such export market provides farmers with growth opportunities. However as mentioned above, there are constraints in the systems which MDF is well positioned to address by working with the exporters, farmers and other relevant market actors. The work on this pathway not only creates a complementary influence on the other
horticulture pathway but also in tourism and export processing. (See, under tourism, pathway and under export processing, pathway). There are risks associated in pursuing this pathway and they are:
A bulk of Fiji’s horticulture exports is toward Australia and New Zealand have strong bio-security laws. If proper procedures are not being followed by exporters, there are possibilities that export channels may close. To this end, MDF and its partners would also need to work closely with Fiji border agencies (for example BAF and FIRCA) and ensure proper monitoring, quality control and compliance of importing country requirements. Timely shipment of horticulture export is crucial in maintaining the freshness of the product. However connections from Fiji to these exports markets are vulnerable to downtimes in aircrafts and ships. MDF partnerships with freight forwarders, transporters on having proper cool chains will help reduce the impact from such vulnerabilities.
Pathway 2: Agro Input providers expand their reach and/or diversify their product base to better serve the interests of small farmers in Fiji in a commercial manner. Background (‘before picture’) The agro input industry is relatively nascent. The two large players (one in seed and one in crop care) have near market monopoly and are very traditional in their approach; consequently it is a sellers’ market with the farmer having little choice about what to buy. There are very few dedicated agro input retailers (less than five) with agro inputs being also available at some hardware stores (around 25 stores). There are only a handful of commercial nurseries (fruits, vegetables and tree saplings) with none focused on root crops tubers. Traditional farming practices and lack of adequate farming knowledge means that many farmers do not have understanding of, access to, or the means to procure adequate inputs, other than fertilizer which is subsidized, sold and distributed to almost all sugarcane farmers by the government. Majority of Fiji’s soil is acidic and is in need of liming. Irrigation problems are also becoming endemic in the Northern and Western parts of the country as seasonal droughts are increasing in frequency and severity. Limited availability of farm implement and labour shortage are aggravating problems faced by farmers. There are two ministries focusing on agriculture: Ministry of Primary Industry and then there is the Sugar Ministry. Both of them have their own research stations (in total less than 5) whose role is to provide research and development support to their extension departments and farmers. The stations also provide free inputs as and when budget allows. The role of women and ethnicity is the same as listed in pathway 1 under Horticulture.
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Anticipated ‘end picture’ (when markets work well) The seed market in Fiji will become more competitive as there would be at least three organizations regularly engaged in commercial import and distribution. There would be also at least 5 commercial nurseries (including for root crops) operating, selling not only to institutional clients (Government, development organization) but equally importantly producing and retailing to farmers in major islands directly. All input retailers (dedicated and mixed), again in all major locations of the country (Nadi, Rakiraki, Sigatoka, Suva, Labasa, Taveuni) will strive to ensure availability of required inputs at the right time; different packaging options would exist to promote affordability to small farmers. The steady presence of a local company in producing and retailing agricultural lime, would mean soil acidity issues have been effectively tackled and maintained. Presence of cost-effective inter-island shipping means there will be more sourcing from islands (Vanua Levu, Levuka, Taveuni). There would be more availability of appropriate farm machinery and implements to offset the shortage of farm labour. The work with possible BMO and support of public-private consultation as mentioned in pathway 1 would also work to create a platform to raise issues at the national level. The role of women and ethnicity is the same as listed in pathway 1 under Horticulture.
Expected Pathway to Systemic Change (likely number, types and focus of partnerships)
Over next 8 years, support the entry and development of commercial seed importers and distributors (Fruits and vegetables). Additionally work with Bio-security to ensure there are clear, transparent protocols and process in place to support such developments. Expected partnership 3~4; Crowding in 1~2 Since root crops and other major export items require planting materials such as suckers and seedlings for cultivation, MDF needs to work in supporting the establishment and development of tissue culture/nurseries in selected regions of the country to promote more geographic inclusion (Rakiraki, Nadi, Suva, Labasa) as well. Expected partnership 3~4. ; no crowding-in expected MDF also needs to work with majority of the dedicated input retailers (around 3) and some of the hardware chain stores in improving their distribution, packaging and promotion to small farmers. Expected partnership 3~4; no crowding-in expected. In the area of information channels, farm implements, labour availability, and other support functions (eg. Irrigation, crop care) MDF needs to improve its understanding to identify the right partners and scale agent. Media house for agriculture information, contractors responsible for land preparation through mechanization and small farmers willing to provide irrigation as a service are ideal entry points where MDF already has started working; there is a potential role for the Ministry of Agriculture to provide a coordinating service in farming areas to improve
labour availability. Considering such options, MDF would need to work with several partners (5) to have a better understanding and also contribute to more lasting change. Expected partnership 4~5; no crowding-in expected
Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Economic Empowerment Same as pathway 1; additionally by working on technology (irrigation, farm implements) and packaging (small pack size for inputs) would help increase accessibility to small farming households including women. Technology would serve to reduce their workload and this combined with increased income is likely to contribute to increased empowerment. . Similar to pathway 1, no dedicated WEE partnerships are envisioned.
Results in time Over a 10 year period (starting 2012) around 15,000 men and women farmers (indigenous and indoFijian farmers) mostly focusing on root crops, fruits and vegetables located primarily in Viti Levu, Vanua Levu, Levuka, and Taveuni will benefit in terms of increased access to inputs. There will be overlap with the first pathway area. 800-1000 FTE jobs are expected to be created due to increased productions.
Feasibility, efficiency and risks Access to inputs is a perennial problem faced by farmers in Fiji. However, equally if not more importantly, access to end markets also constraints growth for farmers. Hence for MDFs work in horticulture to have a lasting impact, it should always have this dual focus and therefore this pathway complements the work of pathway 1. Considering Fijiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s horticulture market and the possible margins enterprises can make in dealing with inputs (small, in absolute terms), significant new entrants are not expected. Given the work already done in inputs and market actors in horticulture, MDF is ideally positioned to work with these existing players to realize its ambitions. Having said that, there are certain risks associated and these are: ď&#x201A;§
Climate: Fiji is at times, prone to extreme weather conditions as in cyclone, flooding and drought. This has the potential to wipe out crops entirely or have no production at all. To this end, partnership that MDF will foster will also look for crop protection elements (ocean freight containers, crop cover) for storage and prevention of damage. MDF will look into irrigation to ensure more farmers have access to irrigation during droughts.
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Disease: BAF has the mandate to ensure that there is regulated entry of foreign agro items to Fiji. This is so, to prevent introduction of diseases that have the capacity to damage crops. MDF will work with partners and BAF to ensure proper compliance to these procedures. It would also explore working with crop care providers to ensure availability of appropriate crop care chemicals. Scale: The business of input is about small margin and large volumes (hence more outreach). As mentioned above, there are only few players in the industry with whom MDF envisions to partner with. However owing to external factors (change in priorities, other business opportunities), there are possibilities that few of these companies may divest their interest to work in inputs. MDF will closely work with these companies to demonstrate the viability of such business models and will closely monitor interest from other partners as well.