Farmer strategies for market orientation in ACP agriculture, synopsis report

This report summarises the papers presented at the seminar under four main themes: market orientation; value added and the nature of competitiveness; research; and education and training.

Under the stimulus of at least a partial liberalization, world trade in agriculture products, commodities and requirements is expected to grow. This will provideincreased 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 increasedeconomic 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 productivityand poor value added performance, will be redrawn to encourage farmers and othersin 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 disruptedeven while they adapt to new ideas of market orientation. The positive gain, however, could be that rural people everywhere will start building links with eachother, not only horizontally between farmers, for example, but verticallywithin thefood chain, with processors, traders, retailers and scientists. Only in this way willthe 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.