Structured demand markets and smallholder farmers – PG-HGSF's latest learning document

The Procurement Governance for Home Grown School Feeding (PG-HGSF) project announces the publication of the next document in its learning series. This study, 'Structured demand markets and smallholder farmers: Relevance and access' by Dick Commandeur and Katherine Casey, examines the concept of structured demand markets within the context of this project.

Structured demand (SD) markets are markets created by public or non-profit entities that have a predictable and reliable demand for food products. Because these markets procure foodstuffs with public or non-profit funds, their funding decisions can and in some cases do move beyond selecting suppliers based on best value for money to serve other development objectives, such as supporting local agricultural production, food security, and rural economic growth.

This document examines the SD markets represented by public primary and secondary schools, post-secondary training institutions, hospitals and prisons in six counties in Kenya as well as strategic food reserves in Ghana, Kenya, and Mali, to determine which markets have the potential to serve as effective boosters of rural development and poverty reduction. The document concludes with recommendations, partly based on the practical experience of the PG-HGSF project, for how governments and development partners can make SD markets more inclusive to smallholder farmers.

Download 'Structured demand markets and smallholder farmers: Relevance and access'.