Putting farmers and small and medium agri-enterprises at the forefront for building inclusive business models is is in line with CTA’s, IFAD’s and PIFON’s commitments to building capacity of value chain actors to enhance governance and improve trust, particularly between producers and buyers, producers and financiers, producers and government and among producers themselves and their related organisations. This is a core strategy for upgrading priority ‘nutrition- sensitive’ local value chains.
September-October 2018: 7 representatives of Pacific Islands farmers /producers’ organisations and government ministries working with farmers organisations in Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands and Tonga participated in the international course ‘Organised Farmers as Partners in Agribusiness – Optimising the performance of producers’ organisations’ in the Netherlands.
November 2018 – Ongoing: Following the training, priority value chains are being mapped and a joint process has been adopted for the development of an encompassing prototype for upgrading priority local food crops and fisheries value chains and an inclusive business model with the aim to make a difference for thousands of Pacific family farms and communities. Pilot trainings are being conducted on national level that will also inform the prototype (e.g. FCLC Workshop in March 2019)
April/May 2019: Organized Producers as Partners in Pacific Agribusiness and Value Chain Development Event – The objective is to validate the process for inclusive business model development, train 35 regional farmer and producer organisation leaders and build a network of strong farmers’ organisations for upgrading priority local food crops and fishery value chains in the Pacific Island States.
Farmers are key actors in agri-food sector development, feeding and nourishing growing populations and realising economic development. Through collective action, farmers and their organisations can better negotiate prices for agro-inputs, improve production and productivity, create added value, access credit and more remunerative markets and lobby for a more enabling policy and business environment. Knowledge, joint learning, collaboration, and partnerships are key to successful innovation in Pacific agri-food systems.
Fiji Crop and Livestock Council organizes Farmer Professionalisation & Empowerment Workshop
