Large-scale impact
In depth
The M4P approach explicitly aims to reach large numbers of poor by harnessing the dynamism of the market system to achieve scale and sustainability. It does this by alleviating the constraints that restrict equitable participation and better terms of access to all those who engage with the system.
Through a rigorous analysis of the role of the poor within market systems, the M4P approach identifies and targets those markets that are of the greatest importance to the poor and intervenes to trigger improvements which will have the greatest and most durable impact on reducing levels of poverty.
In practice
The vegetable sector is growing and is important to the livelihoods of large numbers of poor farmers, but supply cannot keep up with rising consumer demand. Productivity is far lower than in neighbouring countries, constrained by poor farmers’ lack of knowledge about good practices (eg planting techniques, use of inputs and recognition and treatment of problems). Conventional efforts to improve farmers’ access to knowledge through public extension services and NGOs lack scale and sustainability. Analysis indicates that farmers tend to look to local retailers of agricultural inputs for advice, but this is of variable quality and reliability.
Supporting retailers directly to improve the advice they provide to farmers isn’t a feasible strategy for achieving scale. Instead the programme looks for other market players with the capacity and incentives to improve retailer performance. It concludes that large input suppliers have a clear commercial interest: if retailers provide reliable advice to farmers, not only will farmers improve productivity, but their satisfaction with retailers will increase, creating customer loyalty and increasing sales of inputs. The programme works with input suppliers to introduce a retailer training course which focuses on enhancing retailers’ ability to provide practical advice to farmers. Successful pilots see farmer productivity increase by 30%, a dramatic improvement in retailer-farmer relations and increased input sales. With no further programme support, input suppliers train over 14,000 retailers, serving approximately 2m farmers. Retailer training is also adopted by sixteen other input suppliers in a variety of other agricultural sectors in seven regions.