Small-scale family farmers are a cornerstone of agriculture in the NENA region, managing about 85 percent of agricultural holdings. Yet, their livelihoods and income are often undermined by factors of limited assets, land fragmentation, weak productive infrastructure, and links to markets.  In addition, low volume and quality of produce, high transaction costs, as well as weak access to inputs, technologies, market information and postharvest facilities, limit their capacity to operate their farms as profitable businesses and respond to market demands and standards. Women and youth are at a particular disadvantage given the additional constraints they face in access to resources, capital, information, services and markets. 

Rural Advisory Services (RAS) play a key role in enabling farmers to cope with both production and marketing challenges, thus contributing to enhancing rural livelihoods and reducing poverty. This entails a wide range of market-oriented RAS encompassing services that enable smallholders to increase their productivity, manage their farms sustainably, link to inputs’ and outputs’ markets, act collectively and make informed decisions to advance towards “farming as a business.” Targeted efforts are further needed to ensure responsiveness of RAS to the diverse needs and demands of small-scale farmers, women, youth and vulnerable producers.

Evidence shows that these diversified services are often provided by multiple service providers from the public and private sectors, producer organizations and civil-society groups (pluralistic service system). Increasing service quality and outreach can therefore be facilitated through capitalizing on diversity of these systems and networks, drawing on the comparative advantages of each actor and the complementarity of services they provide.

The sub-programme aims to strengthen rural advisory service systems in the NENA region, making rural services work for small-scale producers and family farmers towards more inclusive rural transformation.  The overall purpose is to inform and guide the development of policies and scalable programmes on pathways for transforming RAS to more inclusive and market oriented systems facilitating access of smallholders to services and markets to increase their income and enhance rural livelihoods.

Arab Forum for Rural Advisory Services (AFRAS)