Smallholder participation in the tropical superfruits value chain:ensuring equitable share of the success to enhance their livelihood

Year of publication2014

AuthorFAO

PublisherFAO

AbstractThe production and trade of tropical fruits generate income, improving the livelihoods and food security of producers, who are almost exclusively smallholders in developing countries. They also contribute positively to meeting daily nutritional requirements, underpinning the importance of these fruits from both a commercial and nutritional perspective. Regardless of whether they are “super” or not, value is added at each step of the value chain – from farm-gate, through intermediaries (wholesale and retail), to the consumer. Significant progress has been made to explore measures to ensure that smallholders gain fairly from value addition along the chain. However, inadequate post harvest and transport infrastructure, resource limitation, institutional support and compliance with market access requirements are some of the reasons that smallholder producers have not been fully integrated. Therefore, forming like-minded players into legal entities, such as cooperatives, would better facili tate their integration through achieving economies of scale and improving their bargaining position. In this report, supporting evidence to some of the arguments put forward will be drawn from successful projects on bananas, tropical fruits and tea which were implemented in the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Indonesia, respectively, and supervised by the RAMHOT Team of the Trade and Markets Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

 

ThemeAgricultural Commodities and Development

Product typeBook (stand-alone)

Areas of workGlobal Commodity Markets

CommodityTropical fruits