Markets & Value Chains

We believe raising long-term resilience of the world’s human-natural systems requires well functioning markets and a situation that encourages entrepreneurial activity. Such a situation will enable people to identify the most rewarding opportunities, take calculated risks, and manage uncertainty. We believe poverty reduction in developing countries can be accomplished if a paradigm shift is realized, away from conventional liberal macroeconomics towards an inclusive approach that places more emphasis on managed trade, agricultural development, entrepreneurship and capital investment. Key here is the development of functional markets.

In several projects Resilience supports the development of markets and entrepreneurial activity through research and policy recommendations. In these projects we explicitly recognize that there is no such thing as a blueprint for market and entrepreneurial development. Instead we understand these challenges to be embedded in a local specific context that requires to be tackled by an interdisciplinary approach

Fair Tamil Mangos; Analysis of the mango chain to enable the import of fair trade mangos from Tamil Nadu, India January 2009 till April 2009
Tamil Nadu is a southern state of India with a large production (~5 % of Indian production) of Mangos. The majority of the mangos is produced by smallholder farmers and sold if possible to conventional traders. The unorganized have little power to negotiate a decent price for their products. Developing a fair trade scheme together with organising the mango farmers is an option to improve the current position of the smallholders. We believe raising long-term resilience of the world's human-natural systems requires well functioning markets and a situation that encourages entrepreneurial activity. Such a situation will enable people to identify the most rewarding opportunities, take calculated risks, and manage uncertainty. Currently we know of no fair mango trade going on from India. We aim to establish a fair trade farmer group in future and enable fair trade mangos import. To facilitate this that a report has be written by students of Wageningen University and in near future we start more profound field research. This research has been supported and enabled by the special adviser to Resilience Manickam Muthuraman.

Policy Game: Building Capacities in Trade Policy Analysis 2004-2006
This is a tool for training in multilateral negotiation and their effects on agricultural policy. The project is financed by the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations (FAO, www.fao.org), Rome, Italy, in co-operation with the Agricultural Economics and Rural Policy Group of Wageningen University and Research Centre (WUR-AEP, www.aep.wur.nl), The Netherlands. (paper on game)

Transforming poor smallholders into entrepreneurs in sub-Saharan Africa: A pathway for development
April 2005 — December 2006
The objective of this project is to create policy measures that can facilitate the entrepreneurial (private sector)-driven development of the agro-food chain and will facilitate the transformation of poor smallholders into entrepreneurs. Key in this respect is concentrating on the real and perceived constraints that prevent smallholder farmers taking entrepreneurial risks, and give them ways and means to manage the level of uncertainty and take calculated risks to reap the rewards of entrepreneurial behavior. During the first phase over 1200 farmers have been interviewed and together constraints and opportunities have been identified. This six year research project has been defined by Prof. Eenhoorn of the Food Security and Entrepreneurship Chair of Wageningen University and will partly be executed and coordinated by Resilience Development in the Netherlands, Ghana, Kenya and Ethiopia. See as well: Who is who in Ghana?

Drivers for competitiveness in agri-food chains: A comparative analysis of 10 EU food product chains June untill October 2005
Within the EU-MercoPol project Resilience wrote report 2.3 that analyses the drivers for competitiveness in EU agri-food chains. The EU-MercoPol project is an EU funded project that investigates current developments in EU and MercoSur agri-food chains. Main partners are Wageningen UR, the Federal University of Sao Carlos, Brazil and CIRAD, France. The report made up an important input for the EU-MercoPol workshop of November 7-9 in San Carlos, Brazil.

Use of complex systems approaches to establish new relations between consumers and producers Ierapetra, Crete. August 2006
A summer school was held on use of system approaches for issues in rural development like local food systems, agrotourism and organic farming. The event combined modern notions on complex systems with ancient Greek thinking on "the nature of nature", applying it to practical problems of rural development in the challenging environment of Crete (Greece). Resilience supported this course for University students with presentations and moderation. In cooperation with la Ventana. Dowload the reader here