Impact of agribusiness on the livelihoods of smallholder farmers

Photo credit: CIAT-DAPA

In the middle Mr. Juan Camilo Restrepo Salazar, former Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development of Colombia, serving in the administration of President Juan Manuel Santos Calderón.

PROMOTING SMALLHOLDER INCLUSIVE AGRIBUSINESS IN COLOMBIA: THE PAAP PROJECT

by riparra-pena

The Linking Farmers to Markets (LFM) research team of the Decision and Policy Analysis Area (DAPA) of CIAT, with the financial support of the Ford Foundation, began a rigorous study regarding the Productive Alliances Support Project(PAAP) two years ago.

The PAAP is a project implemented by the Colombian Ministry of Agriculture (MADR) that has helped around 50,000 rural families to formalize agribusiness contracts with more than 400 commercial buyers. This study was recently concluded with outstanding and useful results for policy makers and implementers.

In particular, the study’s objective was to do an analysis not only of the PAAP project framework, its mechanics and effectiveness on promoting competitiveness advantages in the Colombian rural sector, but also to evaluate its impact on the livelihoods of smallholder farmer beneficiaries, with a special focus on vulnerable populations. This way, information on the policy design of regional linking farmers to markets projects was provided as well. The results of this study are even more crucial as the government currently has the intention of scaling-up PAAP and turning it into a national rural development policy.

Read the full article: CIAT