Improved marketing methods ensure smallholder access. Validated RNRRS Output.
Abstract
This is one of 280 summaries describing key outputs from the projects run by DFID's 10-year Renewable Natural Resources Research Strategy (RNRRS) programmes.
Principally based on Projects R6344, R6768 and R7013. Regulated warehouse receipt systems (WRSs) are helping to combat persistent problems in agricultural marketing and credit systems in sub-Saharan Africa. Such problems include highly variable seasonal prices (especially for staple grains), cheating on weights and quality, and limited access to credit. They stem from a lack of efficient storage facilities, poor rural transport, poorly developed systems of standard grades and measures, unreliable market information systems and lack of collateral for bank loans. WRSs address many of these issues, to the benefit of both producers and consumers. The systems are open to all players and include specific mechanisms to ensure access by smallholders. They are being applied in Ethiopia, Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, as well as in Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Poland and Russia.
The CD has the following information for this output: Description, Validation, Current Situation, Environmental Impact. Attached PDF (12 pp.) taken from the CD.
Citation
CPH18, New technologies, new processes, new policies: tried-and-tested and ready-to-use results from DFID-funded research, Research Into Use Programme, Aylesford, Kent, UK, ISBN 978-0-9552595-6-2, p 89.