Effective methods for scaling agricultural innovations requires a well-connected innovation system that links researchers, extension staff, private agri-businesses, service providers, input suppliers, farmer organizations and collectives, and individual farmers.
In this project we will focus on one initiative designed to help deliver new services to small-holder farmers to understand how information is moving through this system and what the broader impacts are on farm communities. Farmers’ Hubs were developed by the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture (SFSA) and are designed to provide multiple services to smallholder farming communities such as the purchase of inputs including seed and seedlings, selling farm produce, and access to machinery. They are initiated to develop a self-sustaining, profitable business that also acts as a social enterprise. They started in Bangladesh but have also been developed in Indonesia, Kenya, Senegal, Mali, and recently in Cambodia. They are not a one-size-fits-all solution but a method for determining what is missing in terms of services in a local community and developing a business model for how this gap could be filled.
This study will document and understand how Farmers’ Hubs in Bangladesh are being used to improve the adoption and scaling of new agricultural technologies to smallholder farmers, and identify opportunities for them to be used more effectively. The overall objective is to evaluate how and in which contexts Farmers’ Hubs facilitate the dissemination of new products, practices, and services to smallholder farmers and the broader farming community as commercial service providers.
CSIRO will lead the project, working in partnership with colleagues from Bangladesh Agricultural University and SFSA. The project will contribute to strengthening the alliance between ACIAR, SFSA, and the Crawford Fund Australia.
For more information, please contact Dr Sarina Macfadyen ([email protected]).