Winrock International - Project Fact sheet: Central Asia Farmer-to-Farmer Program

Project Title:
Central Asia Farmer-to-Farmer Program

Project Website - n/a

Program Group:
Enterprise & Agriculture

Country:
Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan

Project Length:
1999 - 2008

Funding:
USAID

Volunteers Bring Progress to Central Asia

Agriculture played an important role in the economy of the Central Asia Republics, but these countries faced limited production capacity, a poorly diversified agricultural base, and antiquated and inefficient postharvest processing. Challenges to implement any program in Central Asia were numerous, particularly when it came to developing a private agriculture economy. Although there had been privatization of land and laws passed with the objective to assist farmers, farmers still had many difficulties. They lacked access to the necessary credit in order to modernize their farms. Quality inputs and modern agricultural technologies were not available through the government, and policies enabling the private sector to supply agricultural production services were not well developed. Our goal was to help increase food production and distribution, and improve the effectiveness of farming and marketing operations in Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. To meet our goals, volunteer assignments were developed to cover the following sectors: agribusiness, agro-processing, beef, dairy, farm management, field crops, horticulture, organizational/youth development, producer organization development, veterinary services, and water management.

The program's objectives were to:

Increase sustainability of private agribusiness through improved technologies and business management practices.

Increase capacity of farmer's associations, cooperatives, and business support organizations to achieve sustainable service delivery and advocacy.

Strengthen the rural finance system to provide credit and other services to agricultural enterprises.

Winrock's FTF Program directly supported USAID's mission objectives of promoting open and competitive economies and markets, developing science and technology toward increasing agricultural output and efficiency, promoting the population's awareness of natural resource management, and expanding access to economic opportunities for rural populations. FTF's goal was to increase rural prosperity by improving the capacity of local agriculture producers and agribusiness while protecting the environment.

Focus areas in each country were:

Kazakhstan: beef, dairy, field crops
Kyrgyzstan: agro-processing, horticulture, producer organization development, water management
Tajikistan: agribusiness training, dairy, horticulture, water management
Turkmenistan: veterinary services development, cooperative/youth group development
Uzbekistan: general agricultural training, producer organization development, water management

Over the life of project, 263 assignments focused on technology transfer, 70 on organizational development, 190 on business/ enterprise development, 5 on financial services, and 6 on environmental conservation. FTF targeted different levels of the value chain, including 109 assignments on information and input (pre-production) support services, 283 on on-farm production, 101 on processing, and 41 on marketing. One hundred thirty assignments fell in the flexible category, including assignments in apiculture, aquaculture, credit, energy, organic production, poultry rearing, swine production, and tree crops.

To address these constraints in various agricultural value chains, FTF mobilized a total of 534 volunteers (437 males [82%] and 97 females [18%]) from 46 states. These assignments directly benefited 15,340 women and 24,187 men. The volunteers completed a total of 10,338 volunteer-days during their assignments. The total value of the FTF volunteers' professional time was estimated to be US$4.1 million and they leveraged US$107,000 in additional resources. These resources included funds raised to provide grants to farmer groups, grants from other institutions leveraged by the volunteer, technological and computer equipment, farm equipment, books, and pamphlets.