Contract Farming for Better Farmer-Enterprise Partnerships: ADB\u27s Experience in the People\u27s Republic of China

[Excerpt] Agriculture should provide safe and nutritious food to people. In the People’s Republic of China (PRC ) and many other developing members of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), agriculture is also the main source of income for rural residents. Yet as compared with the total labor force absorption, the contribution of agriculture to gross domestic product is very small, suggesting lower productivity, often resulting in poverty. Recognizing the invaluable contribution of agriculture to the PRC ’s development, the government has been prioritizing agricultural modernization in its policy agenda with an aim to further improve the agricultural sector’s productivity and efficiency. ADB’s support to the sustainable development of agriculture in the PRC covers broad areas ranging from irrigation infrastructure and farmland upgrading to agribusiness development and food safety. The Dryland Sustainable Agriculture project commenced in 2009 with ADB assistance supports the development of partnerships between private agro-enterprises and farmers using contract farming arrangements to strengthen farm productivity, food production, and processing capacity in 27 counties in Gansu, Henan, and Shandong provinces. After 6 years, the project has delivered considerable amount of outputs in terms of facilities established and farmers engaged, showing promise in achieving its outcome. Concurring with the request from the Ministry of Agriculture, the project executing agency, ADB provided a grant to study the experiences arising from the project with respect to developing sustainable farmer–enterprise partnerships particularly contract farming models. Equally important, the study examines the issues involved in current contract farming practices and recommends policies that may help resolve them

Unlocking local capital for development: Shared Interest’s guarantee fund for South Africa

Community development ; Bank loans

Creating Shared Value in India: How Indian Corporations Are Contributing to Inclusive Growth While Strengthening Their Competitive Advantage

Leading companies are finding new ways to accelerate growth and increase competitive advantage through innovative business models that meet societal needs at scale. These companies are "creating shared value" by using their core business processes and practices to enhance the competitiveness of companies while improving social and environmental conditions. The concept of Creating Shared Value (CSV) was introduced by the co-founders of FSG, Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter and senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School Mark Kramer, in several Harvard Business Review articles (most recently in January/February 2011). FSG's research in India has identified a number of highly innovative examples of shared value. In this paper, we highlight these examples and call on corporations, especially our largest ones, to lead the charge toward a strategy for growth that benefits all our citizens

Business Ownership by Workers: Are Worker Cooperatives a Viable Option?

One possible strategy for both succession and new business development is employee ownership.� New business formation as an employee-owned firm or cooperative may have some advantages over formation as a sole proprietorship or partnership: pooling financial resources, spreading risk and combining the various knowledge and skills of the members involved. In the case of business succession, selling to employees provides a tax benefit to the owners and increases the probability that the business will continue to exist in its current location, benefitting both the employees themselves and the local community. While worker cooperatives (or employee-owned cooperatives) are currently rare in the United States, successful examples exist, suggesting potential for future development of this type of organization. This paper reviews the literature on worker cooperatives and presents data on the extent and nature of worker cooperatives in the United States. It concludes with a discussion of the implications for employee-owned cooperative development in Iowa and provides suggestions for future research and outreach programming on this topic.

Farmer Family Learning Groups for Community Development

The approach which is owned by everybody who uses it. Farmer Family Learning Groups are groups of farmer families, who together define their needs and goals in relation to their own future development, both as individuals, families and as a group - and then they help each other to reach the goals. The groups form strong networks and help each other, and help the entire local community. Organic farming is practiced in ways which are contextual specific and dependent on the environment, wherever it is being practiced. Forming farmer groups using this approach is likewise contextual specific and entirely determined by the needs and wishes and agreements within the group of families who in the first place decided to form a group for conscious and goal directed development in their households and local community. The beauty of the approach – like many other empowering group approaches – is its flexibility and at the same time strong and clear foundation on values like respect, trust, equality, common learning, building up human and social capital and knowledge which is relevant and meaningful to each participant and learner, as well as probably the most important value: ownership. Contact to the authors and further information can be obtained through the web pages of SATNET, NOGAMU and OD. Tell me and I will forget Show me and I will remember Involve me and I will understand Step back and I will ac

Enhancing choice? The role of technology in the career support market

This report explores the role that technology has played in the development of the career support market. This market is conceived broadly to include all possible resources that individuals might draw upon to support them in their career development. A key element is the role that is played by public-sector career services and by careers professionals; though these resources are supplemented by services paid for in a wide range of ways and delivered by a range of professionals and non-professionals.UKCE

Stuck in a rut: emerging cocoa cooperatives in Peru and the factors that influence their performance

Agri-cooperatives play an important role in helping resource-poor farmers reach high-value markets. In addition to linking smallholders to markets, cooperatives provide their members with various services, such as extension, credit, input subsidies, and social programmes. While the literature contains many examples of success, there has been limited discussion on the often long and turbulent process by which cooperatives develop over time and the viable options for shortcuts. This study examines four emerging cocoa cooperatives in Peru to determine their overall business viability, the key factors that advanced their development, and their capacity to address the needs of their members. Our findings suggest that strategies for supporting cooperative development have largely failed to address major internal weaknesses and the challenges posed in the external environment. The cooperatives have received time-bound, uncoordinated, and often small-scale, interventions, which have focused on infrastructure expansion and technical assistance. Important areas related to business management and governance structures, trust relationships with buyers, and sufficient working capital have largely been ignored. Shortcuts may be achieved through improvements in access to business development and financial services, deeper engagement by private sector to support the development process, and commitment by stakeholders to monitoring and critical reflection for strategy refinement

Factors for Successful Development of Farmer cooperatives in Northwest China

Chinese cooperatives, successful factors, cooperative development, Northwest China, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Farm Management, Health Economics and Policy, International Development,

Empowering Rural People for Their Own Development

This Elmhirst lecture first discusses the features of the institutional environment which allow rural people in low income countries to design, plan and implement their own rural development. These are divided into two broad groups: the institutional environment for rural development (environment for the private sector, communities and civil society, local government, and sector institutions) and the many factors governing profitability of investment in agriculture. While in many poor countries the institutional environment has improved over the last 20 years, the most poorly performing countries still have by far the poorest environment for local government in the world. Within an empowering institutional environment, the rate of agricultural and rural development is determined by investments of many different types that in turn depend primarily on the profitability of agriculture. The paper discusses the large number of factors which determine profitability. Few of these are under the direct control of farmers or agricultural sector institutions, but depend on governance and investments in other sectors such as trade and transport. In many of the poorest countries there has been considerable improvement in macroeconomic management and sector policies over the past 20 years, but progress in international and intra-regional trade policies, in agricultural trade policies, in transport infrastructure, and in agricultural research and extension have been limited.Community/Rural/Urban Development,