粮农组织亚洲及太平洋区域办事处
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Bringing farmers and buyers together in Vanuatu

20/12/2017 Port Vila, Vanuatu

The Government of Vanuatu and FAO are furthering their partnership to promote contract farming as a means to coordinate links between farmers and agribusiness firms.
 
A Contract Farming training workshop on – planning and implementing Contract Farming operations in Vanuatu was held from September 20 – 22 in Port Vila, Vanuatu. The training included a half day field visit.
 
A total of 22 participants (including 10 from outer islands) from the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development NGOs, private stakeholders, agribusiness, fishing and agriculture farmers and extension officers actively participated in this training workshop. Guest presenters Vila Central Hospital and Malapoa College were invited to share their food procurement/buy contract experience with the participants
 
FAO Agribusiness Consultant, Shukrullah Sherzard said. “Contract farming is one of the proven mechanisms that can be promoted to improve efficiency and inclusiveness in transforming food and agriculture systems.”
 
In simple terms, contract farming is an agreement which establishes conditions between a buyer and farmers for the production and marketing of a farm product or products.
 
Under contract farming, producers commit to the future delivery of farm products to a buyer under agreed specifications that can include prices, production technologies, quality characteristics and production delivery dates, among other mutually agreed conditions.
 
In theory, the agreement should be mutually beneficial to a buyers and farmers. It should promote agricultural production and guarantee a secure market for the products, thereby allowing farmers to earn increased revenue and buyers to obtain a return on their investments.
 
Sherzard further explained. “Through FAO projects we aim to improve the capacity of farmers to market a consistent supply of safe, quality food. One of the outputs of this project is to facilitate improved farmer linkages to market though the adoption of service contracts”.
 
At the last day of the workshop a half day field visit was organized to Vanuatu Direct (an agribusiness company involved in Contract Farming operations in Vanuatu) the company share its real life experience of Contract Farming from Vanuatu with the participants.

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