Scale

Abstract

Value chain interventions must be scalable to be considered successful. Scale is necessary to achieve both financial sustainability as well as significant social impacts. Many smaller initiatives and organizations can demonstrate impacts for their beneficiaries, but the scale of the challenge of poverty for smallholder farmers puts pressure on solutions to be relevant to as many people as possible. The drive toward maximizing benefits at scale is one of the motivations behind working with markets and value chains in the first place. If smallholder farmers can be more productive and tap into increasing regional or international market demand, market forces and increasing returns help make improvements self-sustaining. Finding and developing interventions that can make these large impacts in agricultural value chains requires a systems thinking approach. This perspective is especially necessary in value chains where solutions must be end to end in the chain and where infrastructure and market institutions are limited.