Increasing Farmer Access to High Quality Inputs, Credit, and Markets: Perspective of an Economist and a Development Practitioner.

Farmers as economic agents need linkages with both input and output markets. They need quality inputs in adequate quantity and at appropriate time. Farmer demand for inputs such as seed, fertilizer, pesticides, tools, machinery, and labor, is derived from the demand for their output, and determined by their access to cash or credit. As such, farm level production system is intricately linked with output markets, input supply systems, and availability of credit. Thus, it has been long recognized that the productivity and profitability of the farm operation depends on these complex and multidirectional linkage systems.

Researchers from different disciplines have focused on enhancing specific components of these systems to tackle the problem of increasing farm level productivity and profitability. For example, agricultural scientists have taken the technology enhancement focus to tackle the problem of increasing farm level productivity. Over the years, public and private sector investments in agricultural research have generated a range of ‘game changing’ innovations that have increased resource use efficiency, improved genetic gains, reduced post-harvest losses, effectively controlled pests and diseases, addressed risk management strategies, and reduced marketing costs. These innovations have contributed to agricultural productivity gains and helped transform the agricultural sector of several economies.

Economists, on the other hand focus on creating an enabling policy environment, and putting in place functioning institutions and incentive structures to increase the efficiencies of the linkage systems that connect farmers with the input, output and credit markets. Increasing the efficiency of these systems is considered critical to increasing farmer access to technological inputs, credit and markets, which in turn are considered to be key levers for increasing farm productivity and profitability. This presentation will give a high level overview of the research conducted by the Food Security Policy Innovation Lab, highlight some key findings, and share an economist’s perspective on constraints and opportunities for improving farmer access to inputs, credit and markets.