Recent changes in world markets, trade liberalisation and price decontrol have left smallholder farmers more vulnerable to the vagaries of market forces. Constraints such as poor technology, weak organisational structures and high transaction costs due to long and inefficient supply chain means that smallholders cannot compete with large corporations. Collective action which has been successfully applied within natural resources management if properly institutionalised among smallholder farmers can improve their marketing in a number of ways. It can reduce transaction costs of taking produce to the market; increase the smallholders’ bargaining power and enable them to access services that private sector or government are not readily willing to investigate. This paper uses the Sub Saharan Africa Challenge Programme panel data to investigate enabling factors for collective marketing. Based on these factors the paper discusses how Integrated Agriculture Research for Development (IAR4D) can be fashioned to improve upon collective marketing among smallholder farmers in Sub Saharan Africa
