Farmer strategies for market orientation in ACP agriculture, synopsis report

Under the stimulus of at least a partial liberalization, world trade in agriculture products, commodities and requirements is expected to grow. This will provide increased opportunities for ACP countries, amongst others, to fulfil demand, particularly from those international customers whose markets can reward high quality, reliability, out of season supply and other attributes which add value. Whilst not all would agreewith this view, a benefit should be the effect of increased economic activity and income generation on national economies and thus an improvement in food security. The policy framework for agriculture in many ACP countries, shaped in the past by recurrent economic crises, declining productivity and poor value added performance, will be redrawn to encourage farmers and others in food production to produce for the market and to structure farm and family priorities towards that goal. This new policy could lead to family farming and food systems becoming disrupted even while they adapt to new ideas of market orientation. The positive gain, however, could be that rural people everywhere will start building links with each other, not only horizontally between farmers, for example, but verticallywithin the food chain, with processors, traders, retailers and scientists. Only in this way will the elusive goal of a viable, sustainable and integrated farming, food and industry be reached. This is a goal that should be based more on a competitive and successful private sector and much less than in the past the intervention of governments.

Bibliographic Details

Main Author:	Jackson, G.
Format:	Report biblioteca
Language:	English
Published:	Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation 1996
Online Access:	https://hdl.handle.net/10568/64394
Tags:	Add Tag No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!