Learning Network brochure

Project materials (non-specific)
PDF (328.62 KB)
G03094.pdf
Language:
English, Español
Published: March 2011
Product code:G03094

Globalisation and particularly the food crises of 2007-2008 and 2010-11 have renewed interest in agriculture and small-scale producers. Much of this interest has focused on connecting producers to markets. Governments, donors and many in the private sector, have embraced the “pro-poor market” concept with the expectation that, through market inclusion, small-scale producers can prosper in the face of the major changes in agriculture and food markets that globalisation has ushered in.

Small-scale producers are being described as: key to reducing rural poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goals; a pillar of global food security; a source of increased supply for agribusiness, and a new market for seeds and other inputs; stewards of biodiversity; part of the solution to climate change; and, beneficiaries of business, NGO and donor programmes for ‘inclusive business’ and ‘making markets work for the poor’.

A Global Learning Network has been established to critically reflect on this agenda. The network provides a space that combines action research and learning on some of the critical challenges that small-scale producers are facing in globalised markets. How do small-scale producers make good choices in the face of the new opportunities and risks associated with these powerful external agendas? How can they build the capacities to act on those choices – in other words, their agency? Has producer agency been overlooked in the push to ‘link them to markets’? How are producers engaging with pro-poor market interventions and how are they trying to get better deals? The network is a central pillar of the Knowledge Programme ‘Small producer agency in the globalised market’.

The Network brings together leaders and practitioners from the worlds of academia, farming and agribusiness, from Latin America, Asia and Africa. It has organised its work around three major themes.

Cite this publication

Del Pozo-Vergnes, E. (2011). Learning Network brochure. .
Available at https://www.iied.org/g03094