Ask people how getting better at producing and storing palm oil helps them, and they’ll tell you: “I build a house out of concrete.” Why does that matter so much? It’s a much higher standard of living, and you don’t have to rebuild parts of your house after every rainy season. It’s also a powerful social signal that you are coming up in the world.
Building houses isn’t what the project focused on at all. We actually worked on improving market access, and helping families increase profitability by 8 times. How does that help people build better houses? With support from CARE, they get better access to credit, increase the profit margins on their businesses, and learn how to navigate volatile markets that tend not to engage poor people.
The Communal Approach to Agriculture Markets (ACMA) project in Benin ran from 2013-2017, and is now in its second phase until 2021. The project reached 70,000 people with $1.2 million in support from the Dutch government. CARE was a sub-grantee to IFDC.
What did we accomplish?
- The project is starting to scale: Other actors are starting to copy the producer model, and local governments are now paying to support local producer groups.
- There is more food available: People in the project produced 18,000 more tons of food over the life of the project. Pepper production went up 28%, manioc 12%, and palm oil 63%.
- Businesses are more profitable: Farmers sold more than $8.1 million in agricultural produce to Nigeria. The profit margin for palm oil increased 7.3 times, up to $240 per ton produced. For women who grew corn, their revenues went up 11%.
- Incomes were more stable: While everyone in the area experienced lower incomes over the life of the project, farmers in ACMA had much more stable incomes. For them, the drop was only 16% of what farmers who weren’t in the project experienced.
- Families have more credit: People had 8.3 times more access to credit—a total of $1.3 million in credit given out to farmers and producer groups. Nearly 30% of total credit loaned went to women.
How did we get there?
- Support local business associations: The project worked with 41 producers groups that brought together 26,000 local farmers and businessmen. They provided specific coaching for groups, and CARE focused on making sure the most vulnerable people participated.
- Help people manage volatile markets: Using savings, credit, and new storage methods, the project was able to help people store grains and palm oil until market prices went up. Instead of selling immediately for a loss, they could wait until there was higher demand. People were nearly 4 times more likely to be able to stock palm oil.
- Invest in infrastructure, and make sure partners have a stake: The project worked to build local infrastructure, but communities had to pay 5% of the cost, and local governments got involved in planning and sustainability models.
- Get women involved: CARE focused on creating VSLAs and getting women more involved in marketing. We also focused on helping women build their market skills.
Want to learn more?
Check out the Phase 1 final evaluation (in French).