Live stream provocative seminar producer agency

and the agenda to "make markets work for the poor"

Tags: Small Producers Agency

On 28 September 201 the first provocation of a series of provocative seminars by Hivos, IIED, Mainumby and partners took place in The Hague. The provocation was live-streamed. You can watch the debate and also bring in your own responses and opinions through a chat. The English version of the live stream can be found here: http://www.oneclimate.net/provocations, the Spanish version here http://www.oneclimate.net/provocations-es

Why this “Provocation”? Much of the renewed interest in small-scale agriculture has focused on connecting producers to markets. The concept of “pro-poor markets”, whether global value chains, regional trade or new markets for environmental services, has gained a lot of traction among the development community and some businesses, partly as a result of failure of other poverty alleviation programmes. The expectation has been that through market inclusion, small-scale farmers can survive and even prosper in the face of major changes in agriculture and food markets ushered in by globalisation, economic liberalisation, and the partial withdrawal of the state. With some notable exceptions, the vast majority of policy development and debate around the agenda of “making markets work” for small-scale farmers has been conducted at a distance from small-scale producers. This raises some challenging questions. Has the drive to “make markets work for the poor”, whether in the form of support for producer organisation, or support for Fairtrade products, or subsidies for big business, perpetuated a tradition of development interventions being designed externally to “beneficiaries”? Has enough attention been paid to the capacity of small-scale farmers to reflect on and shape this agenda to better suit their needs – in other words, producer agency? Has the development community downplayed other major social and political imperatives by placing economic inclusion at the centre of development discourse? In the first of a travelling series of “Provocations”, IIED, Hivos, Mainumby and ESFIM are gathering together a group of provokers and invited local and international participants for three hours of debate. The objective is to inject new knowledge and insights into the topic. This Provocation is supported by the Hivos Knowledge Programme Small Producer Agency in the Globalized Market.
It was hosted as a side event of the Hivos Dialogue Knowledge & Change: Theory and practice of development dilemmas to be held in The Hague on 29 September – 1 October 2010.

Structure

The Provocation was structured around three sets of questions:

• Why is the topic of smallholders and the “pro-poor markets” agenda in need of provocation? Has producer agency been overlooked in the push to “make markets work for the poor”?

• How are producers engaging with pro-poor market interventions and how are they trying to influence this powerful external agenda?

• What are the principles and practices of building producer and community capacity to make good choices and shape agenda? What kind of are policies are needed that enable these principles and practice?

Debate around each question was started by short provocations from Latin America, Africa and Asia grounded in work with producers and communities, from the following participants: • Lorenzo Castillo, Junta Nacional del Café, Peru • Mohamed Shariff, Kabarole Research and Resource Centre KRC, Uganda • Diego Muñoz, Mainumby Ñacurutú Research Centre, Bolivia and convenor of global Learning Network “Small Producer Agency in the Globalised Market” • Sudhirendar Sharma, Knowledge Networking for Rural Development in Asia/Pacific Region ENRAP, India • Falguni Guharay, Servicio de Información Mesoamericano sobre Agricultura Sostenible SIMAS, Nicaragua

A Series of Provocations - “Making Markets Work” for Small-scale Farmers?

IIED, Hivos and collaborating institutions are organizing a travelling series of “provocations” to take a more careful look at the assumptions, impacts, evidence, benefits and risks of the approach to “making markets work” for smallscale farmers. The aim is to provoke constructive debate by focusing new knowledge and insights onto this development dilemma. Between September 2010 and September 2011, up to seven Provocations will take place in European cities. Each Provocation will gather invited provokers, local participants, and international participants via web streaming, for three hours of debate. Insights will be transferred from one Provocation to another. They will also be assembled into published and digital media. The series is supported by the Hivos Knowledge Programme Small Producer Agency in the Globalized Market.

• Provocation 1: Producer agency and the agenda to “make markets work for the poor” The Hague Netherlands, 28 September 2010

• Provocation 2: Rights-based versus market-based development: a false dichotomy? December 2010

• Provocation 3: Market-based development blindspots in the spotlight February 2011

• Provocation 4: Making markets work: for smallholders or wage labour? April 2011

• Provocation 5: Businesses and the business of rural development June 2011

Further Provocations are also being considered, on Informal Markets, and on Markets for Environment Services .

Track developments at www.hivos.net and www.iied.org