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News
Can the poor benefit from High Value Agricultural Products?
A group of about 40 experts in all aspects of high-value agricultural products (HVAP) - from different points in the research and development continuum and from different stakeholder groups - met at the headquarters of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Cali, Colombia, in early October to help those involved in agricultural research for development address the question of how the poor, especially neglected groups such as rural women and ethnic minorities, can benefit from growing markets for these products. Convened by the Global Forum for Agricultural Research (GFAR) and the CGIAR Science Council, the workshop was organized by their secretariats in collaboration with CIAT, the World Vegetable Center (AVRDC), International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI), and the International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP).
Participants in the High Value Workshop held in October in Cali, Colombia
Major outcomes of the meeting
After examining the major challenges to promoting HVAP, participants identified seven interrelated areas of research as pivotal for enabling effective linkages between poor farming communities and the more competitive and exacting standards of high value agricultural product markets. Research questions were clustered around:
(i) The development of equitable partnerships for engaging in high value markets
(ii) Organisation, with market competence, for the production and marketing of HVAP
(iii) Good practice methods for engaging in higher value markets
(iv) Market types that should be considered in an HVAP strategy for the poor
(v) The management of information and innovation to maintain competitiveness
(vi) The selection of the most appropriate technology for HVAP markets
(vii) Fostering of pro-poor HVAP policies
Overarching considerations
While appreciating the opportunities, the specialists acknowledged that enabling farmers to avail new market opportunities is not easy and entails significant risks. In particular they highlighted a number of considerations with respect to the promotion of high value agricultural products as a strategy for reducing poverty and enhancing food security. Among the most important of these were:
HVAP are not a substitute but a complementary strategy. HVAP strategies are essentially means of enabling producers to diversify into higher risk business areas. The approach should not be considered as a substitute to current development activities but as an additive or complementary process.
How to identify which "poor" to engage within a HVAP strategy. The HVAP approach should identify clients based on risk profiling. In this way communities can self-select among a basket of market options and products to invest in, based on their decisions of acceptable levels of risk exposure. This approach remains inclusive, flexible and offers a democratic and innovative process for working with different segments of the poor within a less advantaged community.
Political will. Participants considered that if left to market forces, poor farmers would be unlikely to be able to form long-term links to HVAP markets. HVAP strategies should be developed in areas where there is political will and community support for the process. Where this will is lacking, advocacy to raise political awareness of the HVAP options to alleviate poverty and improving food security will be required.
The Synthesis Report of the workshop can be viewed here:
egfar.org../pdf/HVP_synthesis_report.pdf
R.B.
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