Empowering Smallholder Farmers in Markets Challenges and - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Empowering Smallholder Farmers in Markets

Challenges and opportunities in linking research evidence to policy processes of farmers’

• rganisations: the viewpoint of research partners

Giel Ton AGRINATURA

LEI – Wageningen UR ESFIM Programme Coordinator

23 February 2012. “Linking Research to Advocacy in farmers’ organisations: building on country experiences” Side –event of the 4th Farmers Forum 2012 – IFAD - Rome

Who are we?

• Initiated by IFAP in 2007

– (2008-2010) Financially supported by IFAD, AGRICORD/AGRITERRA and CTA

• Continued with ten NATIONAL FARMERS’

ORGANISATIONS

– (2010-2012) Financially supported by IFAD and two Dutch Ministries

• Managed by AGRINATURA (LEI WAGENINGEN UR)

– Platform of 35 European universities and research organisations working in agricultural research, education and capacity strengthening for development.

– The ESFIM-consortium: Wageningen UR, CIRAD and NRI

Collaborative Research in 10 countries

Challenge

• Building a research-advocacy interface

– Research support to national farmers’

• rganisations that strengthen their capacities to

formulate feasible, evidence-based propositions to get a more focussed advocacy agenda on smallholder market access

Activities

• A. COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH (90%)
• Research priorities defined by NFO:

– Participatory workshops: address critical constraints for smallholders’ access to markets – Local research on key issues contracted by NFO – Backstopping by AGRINATURA (LEI, CIRAD, NRI)

• B. COMPARATIVE RESEARCH (10%)
• Overarching desk studies and policy briefs:

– Risk Insurance Models – Innovative Financial Models – Incentive Structures in Collective Marketing – Market Information Systems

• ESFIM Philippines – FFF: Commodity Exchange
• ESFIM Kenya – KENFAP: Public Input Programme
• ESFIM Peru – JNC: Taxation and government procurement
• ESFIM Madagascar – CPM: Rural service provisioning
• ESFIM Uganda – UNFFE: NAADS rural advisory system
• ESFIM Benin – FUPRO: Maize sector policy and value chain
• ESFIM Costa Rica – CMC: Food sovereignty policies
• ESFIM Malawi – NASFAM: Seed supply & market information
• ESFIM Bolivia – CIOEC: Collective marketing & legal recognition
• ESFIM Uruguay – CAF: National innovation policy

RESEARCH COMMUNITY

• Research Centres tend to focus on

peer-reviewed research (focus = methods) not on how findings might be applied in development practice

• Researchers are more interested in

mid/long-term studies

• Funding generally for pre-defined

research issues: little flexibility to adapt

• High staff-fee rates

FARMER ORGANISATIONS

• NFOs are interested in findings not

so much in research methods

• NFOs contract

researchers/consultants, when linked to their short-term (advocacy) priorities

• NFOs often lack capacity to access

existing research evidence

• NFO do not prioritise own budget

for external researchers

• There are enough good intentions (policies) to link research to farmer
• rganisations’ needs.
• However, limited experiences with working mechanisms (practices) that

effectively bridge the gap between these different ‘cultures’.

• Workshops versus fact-finding: the mix varies per NFO but in

some countries it tends too much towards workshops mainly due to ‘inherent’ factors:

– budget constraints – legitimacy needs

• Often a preference for ‘internal’ NFO staff as consultants

instead of contracting established researchers

– Causing delays in reporting deadlines (many other tasks) – (Sometimes) poor quality of writing-up their excellent analysis – Constrains the building of a national research-advocacy interface

Lessons learned

Source: comparative analysis of ESFIM process by involved AGRINATURA researchers, October 2011

ESFIM: theory and practice

CPM CAF CIOEC CMC FUPRO FF-AP FFF JNC KENFAP NASFAM UNFFE

MORE INTERNAL STAFF MORE EXTERNAL RESEARCHERS TOO CENTRALLY DEFINED TOO CONSULTATIVE

Lessons learned

• Country specific advocacy strategies:

– Countries where the NFO worked through a wider platform of farmer

• rganisations, were generally more focused on policies and advocacy

for supportive policies to farmers – Countries where NFOs worked more with economic FOs, the focus tended to be more on institutional arrangements that create market access – Need for personal champions but they need to represent the views of the members and have proposals that are based on evidence

• Opportunity to feed country experiences into regional

networks:

– The programme creates interesting case-studies of research-for- advocacy by NFOs that can be used to feed discussions in the regional platforms (‘how-to’ and ‘what’).

Lessons learned

• Need for an institutional arrangement

(governance) that provides a balance:

– Separate funding lines for each: for research assignments and for priority setting and advocacy within the NFO – Requiring an advocacy strategy in advance of research, and flexibility and room for adaptation according to contextual policy dynamics. – Sufficient time frame to have a process that builds confidence (both researchers and NFOs) in the use of evidence to refine advocacy agendas

Next steps (mid 2012)

• Building on the intervention logic behind ESFIM, we

defined key assumption to be validated:

– that evidence is needed for effective advocacy – that our activities have helped to reinforce advocacy capacities

• An NFO self-evaluation tool developed and being

applied, complemented with panel interviews, to assess jointly the advocacy strength of partner NFOs

Grant facility for research assignments on issues prioritized by the NFO Budget for NFOs to define priority issues and for advocacy Quality check on proposals by AGRINATURA and a national research institute NFO feeds experiences into regional farmer networks Follow-up and backstopping of research assignments by AGRINATURA

Phase 3 (projected): ESFIM Country Research Support Funds

WWW.ESFIM.ORG

Discussion

• Learn of other FO experiences of research

evidence to advocacy for policy, institutional, or

• rganisational change (15 mins)

– Examples should focus what processes or mechanism worked well

• Looking to the future, develop specific

recommendations for strengthening the link with research, to provide evidence for NFO’s advocacy, and for scaling up (30 mins)

– Possible role and actions by: national and regional FOs, researchers, governments and funding partners