Commercializing Agricultural Technologies: Groups or Individuals?

Feed The Future Partnering for Innovation Blog


Welcome to our blog! We will be periodically posting essays to fuel discussion and information-sharing around how best to get new agriculture technologies into the hands of smallholder farmers. Please participate, comment, and let us know what you think. Interested in being a guest blogger? Reach us at innovation@fintrac.com.

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Commercializing Agricultural Technologies:
Is it More Effective to Work with Groups or Individuals?

By Don Breazeale,
Team Leader / Commercialization of Agricultural Technologies
at Feed the Future Partnering for Innovation

Commercializing technologies typically involves working with Ministry Extension Services, NGOs, or private companies. With agricultural technologies, there are typically two choices: (1) working with groups or (2) working with individuals. Groups are usually made up of villagers, farmer associations, cooperatives, or other formal or informal organizations. Individuals are generally the smallholder farmers who will be directly using the technology. Which approach achieves faster results? It depends upon the technology. When the technology involves new inputs such as drip irrigation, fertilizer, or hybrid seeds, which are best delivered as a package, individual farmers are the most successful in adapting the technology.
According to labor management research on California grape pruners, a group of pruners never works faster than the slowest individual pruner. This is true for farmers as well. While many individual group members are excellent farmers, group politics can sometimes hamper their participation and ultimate success. Working with groups may be most productive when introducing health, nutrition, or electrification programs, rather than entrepreneurial technologies including complex agricultural input packages.


FHIA Farmers Training with Tensiometers
Honduras Agricultural Research Foundation (FHIA) began transferring technologies to smallholder producers in 1984. FHIA soon realized that to be truly successful in transferring new commercial agricultural technologies, it would need a model that was different from working through village or association committees. FHIA’s current model involves initially working only with farmers exhibiting strong entrepreneurial potential, including an ability to invest a minimum level of in-kind contribution (i.e., land, money, or labor). As the initial cohort progresses, its neighbors are watching and learning, and they will then be more comfortable adopting the new technology.
In 2010 John Deere also targeted entrepreneurs when they implemented a tractor-equipment promotion program in Zambia for maize farmers. Deere provided selected farmers with three-year loans to purchase tractors and equipment and gave them extensive training in how to provide services to other farmers. Of the 18 original participants, two have paid off their loans early and the remaining 16 are on schedule to pay off their loans. The original intention of this program was to jump-start small businesses. While it is too early to declare the program an outright success, the program has been very successful with its first cohort. An unexpected outcome from this program has been more than a doubling of tractor units sold in the country outside of the program itself.What is your experience? When do groups work and when is it better to focus on individuals?

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Partnering for Innovation is proudly implemented by Fintrac Inc., a worldwide leader in generating rural income and food security. This essay is made possible by the support of the American People through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID.) The contents of this Web site are the sole responsibility of Fintrac Inc. and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States government.

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