RAS-L Archives

Moderated conference on rural advisory services for family farms: 1-18 December 2014

RAS-L@LISTSERV.FAO.ORG

Options: Use Forum View

Use Monospaced Font
Show Text Part by Default
Condense Mail Headers

Message: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Topic: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Author: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]

Print Reply
Sender:
"Moderated conference on rural advisory services for family farms: 1-18 December 2014" <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 9 Dec 2014 11:16:37 +0100
Reply-To:
Subject:
MIME-Version:
1.0
Message-ID:
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset="utf-8"
From:
Content-Transfer-Encoding:
base64
Parts/Attachments:
text/plain (1 lines)
This is Francis Chilenga again. 



I totally agree with Akinremi Peter Taiwo (Message 50) on current gaps in rural advisory services especially on markets and agro-processing. There has been much talk of agro-processing/value addition of agricultural products. However, the missing link is farmers capacity to add value to their products. As a result, most farmers either working as individuals are still selling raw products far much below minimum prices. This is quite commonplace in Malawi where a majority are small-scale farmers and with minimal capital to access agro-processing equipment. We therefore need to focus rural advisory services on value chain development and strengthening by provision of training to farmers on product quality, gross margins and market linkages. Market-led extension approaches should either complement other rural advisory approaches or be a major shift from current extension approaches.



Francis Wakisa Chilenga

Principal Agricultural Officer

Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security 

Karonga Agricultural Development Division 

P/Bag 4 

Karonga 

Malawi

cell: +265 888 384 679

e-mail: fwchilenga (at) yahoo.co.uk



[To contribute to this conference, send your message to [log in to unmask] For further information, see http://www.fao.org/nr/research-extension-systems/res-home/news/detail/en/c/264776/  



########################################################################



To unsubscribe from the RAS-L list, click the following link:

https://listserv.fao.org/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=RAS-L&A=1


ATOM RSS1 RSS2