The TSIRO (Thriving/Tangible and Sustainable Investments for Land Restoration and Economic Opportunity) Alliance is the first HEARTH award worldwide. HEARTH (Health, Ecosystems and Agriculture for Resilient, Thriving Societies) is a Global Development Alliance where USAID and the private sector work together to develop and implement market-based approaches to solve development challenges. TSIRO is a unique program, bringing development […]
Multiple Uses of Market Monitoring Market monitoring is often considered primarily a humanitarian sector activity, where price and food security information helps identify potential red flags requiring changes to targeting or valuation of cash and voucher assistance or direct food deliver, often built around Minimum Expenditure Baskets. However, market monitoring has a multitude of uses across […]
Time for another quick entry here to spread the word about a recent article on sustainable vanilla production, from GreenBiz.com, entitled “Is sustainable vanilla the flavor of the month?” The article takes a quick look at some of the key issues in vanilla production: eliminating child labor, traceability, and price volatility. Given the low volumes purchased […]
According to USAID, ‘Market Systems Development is a body of international knowledge, guidelines, good practices and lessons learned that provide a more effective, sustainable, and beneficial way for poor people to develop their capacities and improve their lives. Indeed, Market Systems Development has proven a critically important tool for working with markets to better serve the needs of […]
While we often hear about lemurs, vanilla and other spices when talking about Madagascar, we don’t always think about coffee. However, Madagascar has been a long-time producer of coffee – both arabica and robusta which is mainly bought, sold and consumed in local markets. You will find coffee in almost any local market, and usually […]
Building on Dan McQuillan’s Coffeelands Blog series on issues surrounding farm profitability, I want to shift a bit to the world of Cacao and highlight some work coming out of CRS’ Allianza Cacao program in El Salvador. Agroforestry approaches, increasingly promoted globally, present a complex set of challenges for evaluation – with so many interrelated variables, what is the […]
The recently released Enduring Results Study 3.0 led by CRS takes on a task that few projects have the luxury of doing – it takes a retrospective look at project outcomes two years after funding has ended to evaluate drivers of sustainability and scale. Drawn from 29 USAID partnerships with the private sector, the ERS 3.0 is […]
A quick entry here as I want to point people in the direction of new collection of studies on value chains. Value Chains – Value Chain Development and the Poor: Promise, Delivery, and Opportunities for Impact at Scale, edited by Jason Donovan (CIMMYT), Dietmar Stoian (World Agroforestry), and Jon Hellin (IRRI) is published by Practical Action […]
After reading Bloomberg’s article on cost of production and profitability for Guatemalan growers earlier this month, There Is No Money in High-end Coffee for Guatemalan Growers, I was inspired to add a few more posts to last year’s multi-article series on profitability in the Latin American Coffeelands (series begins here). I want to highlight an […]
Among the questions posed in the last entry was: What are the best ways to organize farmers and achieve economies of scale? What models outside of cooperatives may be more realistic and sustainable? Contained within the question is whether how a group is formed matters. Does the path to forming a group orientated around a business objective matter? […]