Access to Markets
Linking farmers with business in Southern Africa
Engineers Without Borders is working in Zambia and Malawi to foster stronger market linkages between small-scale farmers and private sector enterprises.
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Fragmented Market Opportunity
In 1997 entrepreneur Daniel Ball started Forest Fruits, a honey aggregation and processing business, to ensure the honey farmers in the remote community of Mwinilunga, Zambia could earn an income. Forest Fruits now works with almost 6,000 small-scale farmers, offering them the much needed market opportunity to sell their crops. Business – not handouts – has transformed the lives and secured the futures of these farmers.
However, unlike Mwinilunga, millions of small-scale farmers across Southern Africa still do not have access to formal markets in which to sell their crops. These challenges stem from the limited private sector that exists in both Zambia and Malawi. Here, enterprises are either unwilling or unable to integrate rural farmers in formal markets because of perceived risk or rural locations.
Even when present, the linkages between private enterprises and farmers are weak. Farmers do not have the business skills necessary to negotiate beneficial relationships, and enterprises are often only focused on immediate returns. For many farmers, the transformative power of business is often lost, as they struggle to earn an income.
Learn about our volunteers in Zambia
Our approach
Engineers Without Borders is facilitating stronger links between the private sector and rural farmers to increase access to suppliers, microcredit, and market opportunity for rural communities. To do so, our volunteers are improving the ability of development organizations – which are recognizably neutral market players – to broker more beneficial commercial relationships.
Building the ability to broker effective relationships
Brokering mutually beneficial commercial relationships is complex, as each market intervention changes depending on the interests of the farmer and company. Because of this, EWB is working with our development partners to improve their market facilitation processes and knowledge to foster effective commercial relationships. EWB’s presence is critical, as we have the experience to understand both the business objectives and the realities of a small-scale farmer.
Market facilitators must be responsive, innovative, and business savvy, and EWB has developed a tool that translates these goals into tangible roles for field staff. Our targeted approach is improving the ability of field staff to foster impactful links between private enterprise and farmers. With increased market access, rural farmers now have the opportunity to thrive.
Creating strong monitoring and evaluation systems
Many of EWB’s development partners lack the systems necessary to learn from their market facilitation experience. Because of this, EWB staff works with our partners to create relevant monitoring systems to reflect less tangible organizational learning. Private sector-farmer relationships are always evolving. It is therefore important that development organizations can understand, interpret, and adjust their approach to market facilitation. This work ensures that our partners can learn from their mistakes, and facilitate more valuable connections to markets going forward.
The way forward
Over the next five years, EWB aims to broaden our impact by expanding the market opportunities of Southern Africa’s small-scale farmers. EWB will continue scaling up approaches that work, such as our staff training tools. We aspire to invest in the next generation of agribusiness leaders – like Daniel Ball – to harness the power of small-scale farmers through inclusive business models.
