Procurement governance for home grown school feeding
This learning series by SNV discusses the Procurement Governance for Home Grown School Feeding (PG-HGSF) project, which develops a more inclusive and responsive relationship between smallholder farmers and school feeding buyers in Ghana, Kenya, and Mali. This project aims to link smallholder farmers with government-led school feeding programs based on the premise that such a structured demand (SD) market, coming from reliable and predictable needs for food products, is a compelling opportunity for smallholder farmers. This learning document (PDF) discusses how to prepare school feeding suppliers, particularly smallholder farmers and their organizations, to be competitive suppliers to the school feeding market. Producer organizations (POs) can serve as intermediaries between smallholder farmers and the constraints they face to reach structured demand markets. Their role within the value chain is described in this document (PDF) and intervention areas are suggested to improve the competitiveness of producer organisations. Another learning document (PDF) examines several SD markets to determine which markets have the potential to serve as effective boosters of rural development and poverty reduction. It concludes with recommendations for how governments and development partners can make SD markets more inclusive to smallholder farmers: pro-smallholder procurement tools and procedures; capacity building of the procuring entity; matchmaking between procuring entity and intermediate actors; financing services and business training for direct suppliers and POs; strengthening of the financial capacity of community grain banks. More about grain banks, which aim to built a bridge between caterers and farmers, can be found in this case study (PDF).