Role of the Private Sector in Agriculture Education, information

Private-Public-Farmer Partnerships Private Sector Input suppliers Output processors ICT providers Farmer Individual Farmer Farmer groups Public Government NGOs NAROs CGAIR

Necessary conditions Shared interest among all players Grades and standard Conducive policies and enforced regulations. Competition in between private sector players. Empowered farmers

Examples Uganda rural agro-dealership network Zambia and Mozambique farmers growing cotton under contact. RATES program: providing information to traders to throughout East Africa East Africa Grain Council. company in Senegal doing Sms information regarding markets and prices MANOBI

Challenges and limitations Quality of information from private sector Can we scale these small project up? Trust between players Lack of resources in public sector Limited private sector participation – how do we encourage more competition?

For Debate Is access to information a RIGHT for the farmer? Whose responsibility is it to educate the distributor? e.g. BT Cotton

Other issues Industry code of conduct Worldwide trend for recognizing corporate responsibility that demands truthfulness and accountability and emphasizes long- term perspective Solid commodity exchanges at regional levels