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Friday, May 21, 2010

Melissa's Post

Name: Melissa Poh
Student ID: S10064170H
The Sustainable Tree Crops Program (STCP) is a collaboration between public and private organisations. It serves as an innovation platform that seeks to generate growth in rural crop farmers’ income and promoting environmentally and socially responsible methods of farming in West/Central Africa. This could be achieved through improved farming methods to increase productivity, raise demand for their products and reinforce institutional and policy environment. The World Cocoa Foundation (representative body of the global cocoa industry) and USAID have been the primary supporters of the effort, which is managed by the regionally-based International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA). Stakeholders include US Agency For International Development, Us Department of Agriculture, World Bank, UNICEF, farmers, the global cocoa industry, local private sector, national governments, NGOs, research institutes, and development investors. This program brings in the Paris Declaration of Mutual accountability by keeping their goals focused and aligned to the objective of the STCP. The aid effectiveness proves to benefit the living conditions of the famers and introduce aspects of globalisation to these areas.

The challenges faced firstly would be that cocoa is a tree grown crop. Therefore, they do not have much harvest on an annual basis. In addition, the amount of harvest would be susceptible to uncontrollable factors such as weather conditions. The spread of diseases and pests among crops resulted in a third of the crops being destroyed. Secondly, the maintenance of such crops is labour-intensive. The productivity of harvesting would be inconsistent and inefficient, thus, would jeopardise the farmers’ income. With the uncertainty of crops being produced each harvest, the farmers lack the resources to solve their supply problems. Additionally, a labour intensive industry requires the farmer to stretch their revenue to pay extra helpers to meet demands. Earning little revenue while having many workers, farmers would not abide to labor practices which is one of STCP’s objectives. Thirdly, the farmers possess outdated farming practices which slow down the productivity and efficiency of harvesting. Integrating technology and innovation would incur high costs for infrastructure and additional costs to teach them how to operate and utilise the machines. Teaching the farmers to engage in farming practices that conserve the local environment would be difficult as their goals are to earn as much revenue in the shortest time possible.
The role of the STCP would be to
1. Organize and initiate innovation tree crop industry and aid in developing the rural areas;
2. Provide technological expertise such as machines and infrastructure, and ensuring that quality control is involved;
3. Bridge relationships and communication between existing partners and stakeholders;
4. Recognize relevant partnership opportunities to aid and enhance program initiatives;
5. Support and go in the same direction with national and regional development schemes & maximise resources to encourage the growth of the tree crop industry;
6. Merge program activities and budgets; and
7. Communicate the effect of the Program nationally, regionally, and internationally.
This approach is sustainable because the innovation and skill set taught to the farmers would provide them a more stable livelihood in the long run. It not only improves their productivity and efficiency but credibility to their stakeholders. The new methods of innovation prove to also encourage entrepreneurship among farmers that could expand their businesses. Increased business opportunities can be seized as they are more equipped and aware of the returns and risks involved. Moreover, with increased revenue and program initiatives, more emphasis would be place on the children having to receive basic and even higher education to help in the family business and also start up more businesses themselves. With education and valuable experience, innovation and creativity can be maximised and better utilised.
The STCP program has brought into consideration one of the MDG goals which is to eradicate poverty and hunger. The STCP being a 5 year program and focusing on increasing productivity, marketing efficiency, and farmers’ income is an attainable and feasible goal. In their reports, each of the goals has shared actions involved and figures to reflect the amount of people they wish to impact. Shared action plans are effective because it ensures that there is focus and there is a reasonable amount of goals to achieve within a 5 year period. Methods of measurement would then be made easier not having too many factors of measurement involved which may rate success inaccurately. Having specific figures would help in anticipating the budget, resources, scale of project and support needed beforehand and being able to anticipate risks more effectively.
The Farmer Field Schools have worked well having reached over 170,000 farmers having improved and shared knowledge of crop protection, increasing crop yields and abiding to labour practices. Activities also include radio programs to improve quality control, marketing practices and labour management. Non-chemical pest control methods and diversification of farming systems have also been emphasised. The women have also been integrated into these programs. Figures have shown that the income and productivity gains have increased from 20% to 55%.
More companies are going directly to the farmers for the supplies which will increase the farmers’ income and decrease exploitation of farmers by the middlemen. The strengths of the farmers have been combined to ensure that the market is not saturated and competition would not “suffocate” the smaller scale farmers. The farm earnings have increased by 5% to 15%.
Lastly, the quality and ease of access to education has been improved. The teachers undergo trainings to improve of teaching methods and communication. The curriculum has also been revised to ensure that the students are being educated on current trends and events applicable to their future. Furthermore, micro-crediting options are available to families to support the family businesses so kids are granted education. The STCP fulfils the one of the MDG goal in providing basic education.
The STCP needs improvement in areas such as reaching the tree crop farmers residing in the more inaccessible areas. This could be done by dispersing a needs assessment team to these areas to recee and find out the real needs of the place. In addition, finding out what the resources available are and the strengths of the area and people there. This is crucial because it would stretch resources too much if assumption of needs occur and transportation to these areas would incur more costs. Tapping on the strengths of the place would ensure that actions plans have a higher chance of success. Implementation of similar activities to different places may not prove effective all the time. Secondly, would be strengthening farmer groups. This could be done by ensuring that the profits from the businesses are distributed proportionately. Impartial assessment of profit distribution could be provided by the organisations involved. Events and get-togethers can be organised to celebrate the milestones and success of the sale of crops. This is to emphasise on community bonding and peaceful working relationships. Ownership of a few tree crop areas can be given to the farmers to ensure that they are responsible for the safety and success of those tree crops which in turn develops trust.
Promoting crop diversification is important because it reduces the risk of the farmers’ income stability as they are not only dependent on one crop harvest to survive. In addition, crop diversification reduces stiff competition and ensures that market share is healthily distributed. With more diversification comes more business opportunities which in turn enhances the rural area development.

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