"Now that I have a secure buyer, I will grow a lot more beans,” says one farmer who is benefitting from WFP's innovative Purchase for Progress (P4P) programme.
Connecting Farmers to markets
Purchasing food in the country where we have operations has been a WFP policy for many years. It's called 'local procurement'. While targeting the hunger needs of 102 million people in 2008, the United Nations World Food Programme bought US$ 1.1 billion worth of food in 73 developing countries.
P4P builds on local procurement and takes it a step further. It enables smallholder and low-income farmers to supply food to WFP’s global operations and to gain more by doing so. P4P will give farmers the know-how and the tools to be competitive players in the agricultural marketplace. It will also put more cash directly into their pockets in return for their crops. Learn more
Smallholder farmers in developing countries would have much to gain from vibrant agricultural markets. How to foster the development of these markets and ensure poor farmers have access to them are the key questions on the table in Rome at the Purchase for Progress Annual Review Meeting on 8-10 December.
Dionisio Blandon’s crop of maize is growing well this year and he’s confident he can sell it for a better price than normal. Thanks to WFP and its partners in the Purchase for Progress initiative, this smallholder farmer was finally able to buy good quality seeds and fertilisers.
In the first year of an exciting initiative funded mainly by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, 42,000 smallholder farmers all over the world have been involved in selling food to WFP through the 'Purchase For Progress' pilot programme.
The annual review of WFP's Purchase for Progress (P4P) initiative took place in Rome from December 8 to December 10.
