by admin

Agricultural technology, especially higher yielding and adaptable crop varieties have the potential to not only improve food security but also accelerate and transform African agriculture and economies. However, the slow adoption of new technologies, from improved seeds through to mechanization, has delayed realization of the benefits of these technologies by smallholders who make up 80 percent of Sub-Saharan Africa’s farms. This deficiency is in part due to an under-developed private sector and the failure of market systems to bring new technologies swiftly to the end users. Improving and streamlining the market systems in the region will produce substantial benefits to the agriculture sector by reducing the cost of doing business for all players in the agricultural value chain including farmers, seed companies, agro-dealers and consumers. Making markets work for African agriculture and helping farmers to access new technologies and inputs could spur a transformation of the wider economy. Through our Market Systems for Commercialization Programme, we are focused on facilitating efficient market systems that respond to demand and supply of technologies. This ensures that smallholder farmers have the necessary inputs at the right time, right quantities and right quality. In the long run, this improves productivity and we assist the smallholder farmers with linkage to output markets. The result will be efficient market systems that will accelerate uptake and use of agricultural technologies for improved livelihoods of smallholder farmers.

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