1. FANRPAN Contract Farming Project By Lindiwe Majele Sibanda linds@ecoweb.co.zw lsibanda@mweb.co.za

2. Study Objective The objective of the project is to exploit the potential of contract farming as an institution that can assist to commercialize small-scale farmers The study will develop policies and action plans that can be used to expand the use of contract farming in the SADC region.

3. Contract Farming Definition Contract farming (or out-grower schemes) assumes an extensive number of arrangements that link small-scale farmers to some type of market as a way of supporting them to become successful commercial farmers in the long term.

4. Contract Farming Definition (CTND) The farmers can be linked to markets by either formal or informal contracts as a result of some type of arrangement with a buyer who adds value to the raw commodity in some way (processing, storage, marketing). For the purposes of the project, the buyer is limited to a player in the private sector (agribusiness sector) and will exclude the government and parastatal bodies.

5. Study Focus The focus is on commodities such as groundnuts, sorghum, cotton, paprika, sugar, poultry and horticulture

6. Study Scope The study is being undertaken in phases over a three year period, starting December 2004 by teams selected from country nodes in South Africa, Malawi and Zambia A start-up planning workshop was held in South Africa in November 2004