CFS Policy Convergence Products Database

Enable investment, access to markets, productive services and resources

Promote investment of and for smallholders. Improve policies, markets and institutions to foster economic opportunities for smallholders. Mitigate excessive price volatility and non-transferable smallholder risks using public policy instruments in accordance with international commitments. Develop and/or improve value chains and enable smallholders to be full participants in the value chains of their choice. Ensure legal and fair business practices amongst all parties and increase the negotiating capacity of smallholders. This calls for continued development of policy measures and technical guidelines and tools, including for contract farming and public'private partnerships, in consultation with smallholder organizations, the expertise of relevant UN organizations and other centres of expertise.

Access to markets. Support, in accordance with international commitments, the development of, and access to, markets, distribution and marketing systems and mechanisms that are remunerative for smallholders and rural economies. Recognize the importance of non-monetary exchanges of products and services, the importance of local food systems for smallholders including their potential for supplying school and institutional feeding programmes. Create appropriate linkages and engage smallholder farmers, men and women, along value-chains, especially in local, national and regional markets. Enable and stimulate cooperation between smallholders, for instance, via cooperatives or other approaches for market organization that benefit smallholders in accordance with international commitments.

Financial services. Improve regulatory conditions and financial infrastructure to strengthen smallholder access to a full range of financial services adapted to their needs, with attention to the particular challenges faced by women and youth in this regard. Relevant financial services include safe deposits, monetary transactions and remittances, mobile financial services, sustainable micro, short and long-term credit, public insurance schemes (including indexed insurance), commodity exchange and warehouse receipt systems. Reduce financial risks, lower transaction costs and facilitate long-term investments, ' such as for field operations equipment, food processing and other value-adding activities on smallholder farms. As appropriate, relax liquidity constraints on working capital expenditures (e.g. fertilizers, seeds) as well as on medium and long-term investments while avoid worsening smallholder farmers' debt burden. Support such measures by appropriately designed, well targeted fiscal measures. All the above mentioned measures of this paragraph should be implemented in accordance with international commitments.