Institutional food procurement programmes and producer organizations: catalysts for the transformation of small-scale producers’ food supply systems

Abstract

Smallholder farmers are the main food producers in most of the developing world but their capacity to access the market is often limited, and this constitutes one of the main constraints on the improvement of their livelihoods in many developing countries. In this context, state intervention to increase demand for smallholders’ production through public procurement can be an important instrument to promote marketing opportunities for these producers while also contributing to the development and transformation of local small-scale producers’ food supply systems. Producer Organization (POs) may play an important role in this process. This paper builds on the experience of Brazil’s ongoing National School Feeding Programme (PNAE), its public Food Purchase Programme (PAA), and the Purchase for Progress (P4P) pilot initiative of the United Nations World Food Programme. It aims to explore the roles of Institutional Food Procurement Programmes (IFPPs) and POs in promoting marketing opportunities to smallholders or family farming producers and in acting as catalysts for the transformation of small-scale producers’ food supply systems.