SPECIAL PROGRAMME FOR FOOD SECURITY

Constraints Analysis and Resolution

The SPFS is based on the fundamental assumption that the potential and means exist for most low-income, food-deficit countries (LIFDCs) to meet more of their food requirements in an economic and sustainable manner by increasing productivity and incomes of small farmer households on a large scale. However, farmers' ability to adopt productivity - enhancing technologies and farming practices are often limited by various kinds of constraints; institutional (e.g. lack of animal health services, insecurity of land tenure), financial (e.g. lack of cash to purchase inputs), economic (e.g. unfavourable market prices), social (e.g. peer pressure against change) or infrastructural (e.g. irrigation system in a state of disrepair). If these constraints are not removed or circumvented, they can prevent the widespread adoption and replication of attractive innovations.

Constraints occur at different levels: farm, village/community, district/regional and national. Some constraints may be easy to resolve and others more difficult. Constraints that occur at the local level and have only a few causes can sometimes be eliminated easily and rapidly. Other constraints have many underlying causes and may occur at the district or national level. These are usually more difficult to deal with and require more complex action over a longer period of time. Examples of constraints experienced or perceived by farmers include:

(i) At Farm Level: poor land and soil quality, shortage of appropriate labour during critical periods, high prices for inputs and low prices for outputs;
(ii) At Village or Community Level: inequitable allocation or use of community lands, lack of input distribution or output collection services in the village, overgrazing of communal lands;
(iii) At District Level: lack of processing infrastructure, lack of warehouses and storage facilities, lack of maintenance of district-level infrastructure such as roads, water supply or electricity; and
(iv) At National Level: Inefficient government marketing operations (purchase of outputs or sale of inputs), inappropriate price and regulatory policies.

Examples not perceived or fully appreciated by farmers include: deeply in-grained social or cultural attitudes, misdirected research policy, fiscal, trade and monetary policies that are biased against agriculture.

The immediate objectives of participatory constraints analysis and resolution in the context of the Special Programme are: (i) to identify the problems and obstacles that prevent farmers from adopting improved technologies and management practices; (ii) to search for practical means to overcome these problems and obstacles, taking into account lessons from the past and ongoing efforts; (iii) to take action for the removal of as many of the constraints as possible during Phase I; and (iv) to formulate action proposals for the removal of more complex constraints - that is, those requiring major policy decisions or investments - for implementation during Phase II.

Since constraints analysis depends in part on accumulation of empirical evidence of results and impacts, the constraints analysis and resolution component covers the analysis of demonstration results at the end of each production and marketing season. If the results, as measured by yields or other performance indicators, are not as good as expected, this indicates that there are problems or constraints at the pre-production stage. If the results are good, but the impact as measured by rate of return to the farm and distribution of benefits within the community are not positive, this suggests that there are problems or constraints at the marketing and distribution stage. If the results are good and the impacts are positive, but the farmers show little interest in adoption, this indicates that there are problems related to the inappropriateness of the innovation for the farming system.


For assistance in preparing SPFS projects with this component download:

 

SEE COMMON ELEMENT RELEVANT TO THE CONSTRAINTS ANALYSIS AND RESOLUTION COMPONENT:

 

SEE GENERAL COMMON ELEMENTS APPLICABLE TO ALL SPFS PHASE I ACTIVITIES:

TERMS OF REFERENCES - NATIONAL SPECIALISTS:

 

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