This team carries out research to identify, test and adapt technical, institutional and policy options that will enable smallholder livestock producers to remain competitive in the face of changing market requirements and increased competition from imports.
The target of this team is to enhance competitiveness of poor livestock keepers through research on mechanisms that improve farmer access to the inputs, services and knowledge products needed to increase productivity and profitability of their livestock activities, as well as improve their ability to capture better value for their marketed livestock products.
Market-oriented production relies not only on feeds, breeds and drugs, but also on information and knowledge regarding appropriate technologies and market opportunities. Emphasis is placed on identifying technologies, institutions and policies that will sustainably support market-oriented production by smallholder farmers.
The focus is farm-level and action-oriented, and recognizes the complex, multi-objective nature of poor farm households and the particular constraints that they face in gaining access to the relevant public services and private-sector markets.
The two main areas of attention are:
- Institutions and strategies to support sustained uptake of improved production technologies
- Contractual and organizational arrangements to support smallholder participation in markets
The focus systems are:
- Smallholder dairy systems in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia
- Smallholder pig systems in Southeast Asia
- Mixed crop-livestock systems that depend on indigenous breeds in sub-Saharan Africa
CONTACT
Dr Thomas Fitz Randolph
Team Leader
Smallholder competitiveness in changing markets
International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)
P.O. Box 30709-00100
Nairobi
KENYA
Phone: +254 20 422 3067
Fax: +254 20 422 3001
Email: t.randolph @ cgiar.org