Importance of Development Initiative Ownership by the Benefiting Community: The case of Community-Based Production and Marketing Systems

Abstract

This case study used a Private Public Partnership on a Gadam sorghum development initiative with a view to understanding the conceptualization, implementation, outputs, outcomes and lessons for policy, practice and research. The development initiative involved several stakeholders, namely, East African Breweries, Researchers, Ministry of Agriculture, Equity bank, Smart Logistics and Provincial administration, Ministry of culture and Social Services, and farmer producer groups. Research and development agencies introduced several organizational and technical innovations including production clusters, improved sorghum, payment using warehouse receipts and others. The farmers brought in various technical innovations, which included bird diversion strategies, bird avoidance strategy, planting along plough furrows and many sorghum recipes. The diverse recipes led to a change of perception towards this high value traditional crop and thus the grain became a source of food for the farmers. Payment through the bank helped the farmers to access finances easily and other banks started similar initiatives in the area. It was observed that a technology without appropriate configuration of partners will not create the desired impact. Communication between partners is important towards sustaining the innovation process and a feedback capture and incorporation tool into research is necessary. It was also apparent that support to the whole value chain is important rather than focusing on the output end of the chain. There is therefore need for policies to balance between the profit needs of the entrepreneur and the income/food needs of the farmers. It is important for producers to own such initiatives in order to build sustainability of the innovation process beyond the expiry of external agency intervention initiatives. There is also need to encourage formation of structures representing farmers to negotiate fair contracts with partners or to provide technical advice or credit to their members.