New poverty model to empower poor farmers

Africa Business Daily: New poverty model to empower poor farmers

February 21, 2008: For a long time, models for ending extreme poverty in Africa have been laden with hand-outs. Development activists however have strongly opposed giving free money, goods or services to the poor because the cycle of poverty starts as soon as the free part of the bargain ends.

Development financiers are now starting to see the reality of this problem and have shifted to models that will empower the poor.

A new concept agreed upon at the World Economic Forum in 2007 to end poverty and hunger by enabling farmers to increase yields and add value to the harvest has been rolled out in Kenya.

The concept combines unique business models and partnership between the private and public sectors to grant subsidies to poor farmers. The funding is aimed at enabling the farmers purchase inputs that can boost crop yields.

The model is being tried for the first time in Siaya district, which is acting as the “learning laboratory”. The model will then be rolled out in other districts.

Experiments are being carried out to find out if these business models really end up empowering the poor, and cutting the dependency syndrome on financiers. …

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The project is an initiative by companies to devote part of their corporate social responsibility resources to help end hunger and poverty in developing countries. To facilitate the implementation, the public sector is also a partner.

The partners have created agribusiness and retail business models stretching from the village farm to the supermarket counters. In between, there are aspects to do with increasing yields, processing, packaging and streamlining marketing infrastructure. The idea was born in 2006 during the World Economic Forum (WEF), an annual gathering of top business people and policy makers held in Davos, Switzerland.