Agricultural Commercialisation, Markets and Institutions - Consortium Outputs

New!
Working Paper: Commercialisation of Smallholder Agriculture in Selected Tef-growing Areas of Ethiopia

New!
Working Paper: Agricultural Commercialisation in Coffee Growing Areas of Ethiopia

Briefing Paper: Agricultural Commercialisations – A Level Playing Field for Smallholders?

Working Paper: Commercialisations in Agriculture


Agricultural commercialisation emerged as a central theme during a Consortium workshop in March 2006.

Key questions include: what is commercialisation's role in enabling agriculture to generate sustained poverty-reducing economic growth - and, fundamentally, what types of farming give the best returns for the poorest people? What pathways exist for smallholder farmers to engage in markets for their production?

Overarching concerns are: who is to support smallholder farmers while waiting for the private sector to arrive, as well as questions around the political economy of commercialisation – as yet relatively unexplored.

Emerging thoughts

Much discourse around commercialisation for poverty reduction tends to focus on export agriculture/ horticulture, arguing in favour of commercialisation via large farms in terms of poverty reduction through economic growth. Workers are often poor and therefore there is indeed potential for poverty reduction through securing labour/gender rights. However, commercialisation that contributes to poverty reduction must also consider smallholder farmers.

Smallholder farming provides opportunities for poor rural people to make a living, either through selling their produce or through employment. However smallholder farmers face constraints in production and in their ability to access resources and markets. This points to the need to investigate the linkages between different forms of commercialisation and poverty reduction in different contexts, including production for international, regional, national, and local markets, and linkages between farming and poverty reduction via labour exchange. The theme therefore will take a wider perspective on households and livelihoods that does not make generalisations about optimal forms of commercialisation for poverty reduction.

This leads to clear questions that an initial theme paper on commercialisation could usefully address, drawing on existing work. First, what does a typology of different commercialisations look like in different contexts? This encompasses smallholder farming as well as large farms and the role they play in the livelihoods of poor people. What are the dynamics associated with different commercialisations in the three consortium countries? A key cross-cutting issue here is labour: How do people move to different labour opportunities and between them? What are the nature of and changes in forms of labour exchange and the terms of these exchanges through processes of commercialisation? Associated with this: what are the multiplier effects?

Links to country work and themes

Commercialisation was highlighted in the country group discussions in slightly different ways:

• Kenya Commercialisation is the major thrust of Kenya's Strategy for Revitalising Agriculture. However, commercialisation was not felt to be a priority for the Consortium in Kenya, because i) there are four studies currently being undertaken for KIPPRA; and ii) Kenyan colleagues felt that the concept is not an issue of debate or dispute within Kenyan policy-making circles at present.

• Malawi Commercialisation is seen as important overall in considering the future of smallholder agriculture, and the tendency towards agro-pessimism.

• Ethiopia Important issues include types and paths for commercialisation; commercialisation and labour; what are the opportunities and constraints? Follow-up empirical research in teff and coffee communities aims to uncover these issues

Further Reading

Future Agricultures Powerpoint presentations from the 2007 EEA Conference:


Commercialisations in Smallholder Agriculture: A General Framework

Commercialisation in Ethiopia: Which pathways?

Commercialisation of Smallholder Agriculture in Coffee and Tef Growing Areas of Ethiopia