Smallholder Commercialization and Agribusiness Development Project

The objective of the Smallholder Commercialization and Agribusiness Development Project is to promote smallholder commercialization by fostering productive business linkages between smallholder farmers and selected agribusiness firms and other commodity off-takers in Sierra Leone. There are four components to the project, the first component being Support for agri-business-farmer linkages and small and medium scale enterprises along selected agricultural value chains. This component aims to strengthen linkages between agribusiness firms and farmers and promote producer associations and SMEs linkages in selected agricultural value-chains. The project will address the various financing needs of value chain actors through the design and implementation of proven agribusiness financing instruments that meet actor’s specific financing needs. The second component is the market access improvement. The objective of this component is to support the implementation of productive agribusiness-farmer linkages by addressing market access and coordination issues that constraint smallholder productivity and market efficiency. The project will support the rehabilitation of feeder roads that link agribusinesses to smallholder producers and also provide aggregation centers for farmers as well as simple market coordination (through Information, Communication Technologies (ICT) or cell-phone based price information systems). The third component is the capacity building support for state and non-state institutions and producer organizations. The objective of this component is to support the implementation of productive agribusiness-farmer linkages by addressing the skills and organizational challenges that affect smallholder farmers’ inclusion into organized supply chains. Finally, the fourth component is the project coordination, monitoring and evaluation.