Abstract
This is the second of two chapters that present the case for a portfolio of basic skills to prepare poor farmers for market engagement. This type of skill formation receives little attention in the current debate about how to overcome wealth-differentiated barriers to market entry in poor societies. The chapter discusses the findings of a multi-country Study Tour of three countries, Uganda, India, and Bolivia, organized by the Catholic Relief Services (CRS), a relief and development agency, and the Rural Innovation Institute (RII) of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), an international research organization to explore how their support to farmer groups could be improved and expanded to reach more of the rural poor and prepare them for agro-enterprise development. The Study Tour discovered that a common feature of the farmer groups visited was a drive to acquire and combine five basic “skill sets” that even the poorest groups were incorporating. The observed skill sets were classified as follows: (1) group management; (2) financial skills (usually developed through participation in internal savings and lending groups); (3) marketing skills; (4) experimentation and innovation skills for accessing new technology; and (5) sustainable production and natural resource management skills. Most groups proactively sought to develop multiple skill sets even in the absence of external support for this purpose. Although no single skill set is new in and of itself, the novel discovery was the expressed demand by farmer groups to combine several skill sets. The Study Tour participants concluded that combining skill sets has considerable promise for improving current group development approaches and preparing farmer groups to engage with markets.
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Ashby, J. et al. (2011). Preparing Groups of Poor Farmers for Market Engagement: Five Key Skill Sets. In: Bationo, A., Waswa, B., Okeyo, J., Maina, F., Kihara, J. (eds) Innovations as Key to the Green Revolution in Africa. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2543-2_9
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