Farmers' organisations and contracted R&D services - Service provision and innovation in the coffee chain

Authors: Giel Ton and Don Jansen

Markets, Chains and Sustainable Development Strategy & Policy paper #3. Wageningen University

Increasingly, smallholder producers in developing countries organise themselves with the vision to become attractive business partners in value chains. For this purpose, they established farmers' organisations that are engaged in collective marketing or processing activities. Simultaneously, the capacity to improve production and enhance performance has become a crucial asset in the competitive environment in value chains. Showing technological capacity makes these producers' organisations attractive suppliers for buyers operating in fierce competition in domestic and international food markets. In addition, service providers increasingly try to capitalize on the relative organizational strength and fi nancial autonomy of farmers' organisations that are active as chain operators. Instead of starting parallel organizational structures ‘moulded' around their specific services, as was usually the case in the past, they tend to concentrate on support services tailored to established economic farmers' organizations. This paper discusses the implications of these strategies, aiming for empowerment and leverage for smallholder farmers in value chains, for public and private R&D innovation strategies and service provision.

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