Tree products and markets
Improving tree product marketing for smallholders
Selling leaf meal prepared from Leucaena leucocephala, a fodder shrub in Tanga, Tanzania. Photo: S Franzel, World Agroforestry Centre
Issues of gender and equity are as important at the market access stage as at the production stage. Across the wide spectrum of agroforestry systems and products, our global research project on tree product marketing aims to understand how value chains currently function and where there are possibilities for local actors to improve their livelihoods, either by capturing a larger share of product value or by increasing net benefits.
Our work aims to assess ways of expanding smallholders' access to value chains for agroforestry products and to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of value chains so as to improve smallholder livelihoods. We address problems faced by two sets of actors:
- Small-scale farmers and entrepreneurs, who face high marketing risks and costs and earn low returns
- Agencies, both private and public, trying to facilitate smallholder marketing and rural advisory services.
Learn more about the Marketing and rural advisory services programme:
Contacts
Steven Franzel, Leader
Email: s.franzel@cgiar.org
