Increase the engagement of

private sector in providing

knowledge to smallholders
Herman Syofiri Yasin
Ho Chi Minh City, 3 November 2016

Foreword
Food and farming is inseparable. Smallholder farmers are the key actor who produce food. Farmers should always supply the food
as needed by the market sustainably and therefore they also need appropriate knowledge and information to be able to compete
and fulfil the market demand. However many farmers have lack of proper services, such as access to knowledge and information
(e.g. through training) which are mainly provided by government. Donors and technical development cooperation agency may
provide direct training support as well, but still inadequate as number of farmers are too many.
Recently, several donors such as DFID-UK, DFAT-Australia are piloting an approach namely Making Market Works with the Poor
or M4P. In this approach, rather than providing direct support services to smallholder farmers, they work together with private sector
and other stakeholder to develop market system and provide sustainable solution to smallholders. With this approach, smallholders
get better access to input and output market and in the same time also bring returns to private sectors that involve.
As for example, DFAT (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) Australia has a program called PRISMA (Promoting Rural Income
through Support for Markets in Agriculture) work in more than 20 agriculture commodities and one of them is beef cattle in West
Nusa Tenggara Island, eastern Indonesia. In that island, beef cattle farmers face difficulties in increasing the weight of their cattle
due to the unavailability of quality fodder and lack of proper services to have good skills in livestock management. PRISMA works
together with newly established feed company are producing and supplying good quality feed and also developing a retail
distribution network which enable small farmers to get access more affordable and easily. Besides, the company agreed to work
with retailers to introduce this new feed to the farmers, inform and convince them of the benefit of the new practices by using
demonstration plots, as training to farmers. Everybody involved in this approach has an incentive and reach more farmers. Seeing
this example, other feed companies are expected to produce other quality feed and provide similar services to more farmers, who
later will benefit with increased income.

Outreaching Target Group

Conventional Approach

Question: How can I help target group?

Symptom and cause: Low productivity, lack of certain knowledge
Working directly with target group
Limited outreach and less sustainable
Higher probability in changing the market actors role in the system
Benefits largely go to target group only

Market System
Development Approach
(M4P-Making Market
Works for the Poor)

Question: Are there any solutions for the target group? Why market
does not work for them?
Symptom, causes and underlying cause: Low productivity, lack of
certain knowledge, lack of service providers
Working in partnership with identified service providers
More outreach and sustainable, brings incentive to the collaborative
partner
Actors in market system remains the same
May create additional benefit to other market actors and impact to the
poor

Source: Own compilation and practitioners perspective, further details at DCED The Donor Committee of Enterprise Development
www.enterprise-development.org

Collaboration Process Flow

Sector selection
Desk research and
field investigation
Market mapping
Constraint analysis

Sector Analysis

Scoping and
designing
collaboration program
Intervention design
Partners selection
Developing business
model and calculation
Deal making and MOU

Preparation of
Implementation
Regular Monitoring and
Result Measurement

Implementation and
Monitoring and Result
Measurement

Source: Own compilation, taken and simplified from PRISMAs ( Promoting Rural Income through Support for Markets in Agriculture) tools and project
experience - a DFAT (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) Australias rural development program in Indonesia www.aip-rural.or.id

Intervention Design

Program Level

Identification
Level

Sample in Beef Cattle Sector

Low/suboptimal
weight

Low usage of
supplementary
feed

Limited
knowledge and
information on
feed

Quality feed are

not available

Support the
production,
promotion of
commercial feed

Availability of
locally produced
commercial
quality feed

Shorter fattening
period

Income increase

Poverty
reduction

Source: Own compilation, taken and simplified from PRISMAs project experience

Deal Making

Sample in Beef Cattle Sector

Development Agency
<50%

Private Sector
>50%

Contribute to intangible investment

Leading the collaboration process

Develop business plan, marketing and

promotional materials

Provision of training materials and activities

Develop training design and training the

partner

In charge in production and operational

activities

Mapping and recommending

distributor/agents

Initial tangible investment

Source: Own compilation, taken and simplified from PRISMAs project experience

Expected Result in Agreed Period

9,500
farmers

Reaching the Poor

13,000
farmers

Apply and increase income

50,000
farmers

Regular purchase of Feed

Access to new knowledge and

information

Sample in Beef Cattle Sector

4,000
farmers

Source: Own compilation, taken and simplified from PRISMAs experience - a DFAT Australias rural development program in Indonesia
Images from www.flaticon.com

Key Success Factors and Challenges

Partners selection
Business model
Additionality
(Incentive)

Business objective vs.

development objective
Terminologies
difference
Additionality creation

Source: Own compilation and practitioners perspective

Thank you
Vielen Dank
Cm n
Terima Kasih

Look forward to receiving your valuable inputs