Strawberry Value ChainMarket for Poor

20 June 2012Barda, Azerbaijan

Oxfam International in Azerbaijan

Oxfam International is operating in Azerbaijan since 1993 with the purpose to aid IDPs and vulnerable people suffered from Nagorno Karabakh war. But then Oxfam Int. continued its work in Azerbaijan with development programs with the purpose to reduce poverty in the country.

Oxfam implements the following development programs:

• SMART (Stimulating Markets for Small Scale Farmers Project funded by Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation).

• Sunrise (In 2010 Oxfam and Unilever formed a partnership known as Sunrise to explore, develop and implement innovative smallholder-based sourcing models for food ingredients).

• Governance (Strengthening the capacity of 20 village municipalities to provide safe water supply).

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Health Care (Since 1999 Oxfam has been working to improve people’s access to affordable primary health care services)

Grow Campaign (on June 1, 2011 oxfam globally launched the Grow campaign which address the problems related to food security and climate change).

DRR (We are helping communities to prepare for and respond adequately to natural disasters by increasing resilience and reducing vulnerability)

SMART• The main aim of SMART is to reduce poverty by

stimulating market systems that function for the benefit of women and men smallholders. SMART covers 3 Value Chain:

• Yellow Onion• White Onion• Strawberry

The Aim of Strawberry Value Chain is:

• Improve access to quality strawberry materials• Improve production technology• Strengthen access of smallholder producers to fresh fruit

market

Why Strawberry Value Chain?

Growing strawberry can be highly profitable even in small plots which make it suitable enterprises for women and other vulnerable groups

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The project focus the interventions to improve access to quality strawberry planting materials and production technology as well as to strengthen access of small producers of strawberry to the fresh fruit market.

Initially we made field visits to learn the demand and challenges of the strawberry growing farmers and farmers especially women farmers noted that their main problem is to have new varieties. For making good income it is necessary to have productive varieties and technology.

To see the productive varieties and technology on a local level on 2 November 2012 SMART project organized exposure visit to Jalilabad which is mainly strawberry growing region in the south part of Azerbaijan.

.In Jalilabad Farmers first time saw that seedling are irrigated through drip irrigation system and strawberry varieties that give crop 5 month from May up to September which inspired farmers to grow this new varieties, as local variety gives crop only 20 days in May.

The five Irivenli farmers are convinced that there is a strong business case if strawberry farmers in the Central Region will use the modern variety and which will increase the demand for information and expert advice about appropriate growing techniques.

Considering the demand and mainly women participation in Strawberry Value Chain Oxfam with the contribution of Irevanli community set up Strawberry Nursery with drip irrigation system as a visual sample for other farmers.

For learning the use of drip irrigation system and the way of applying the chemicals AKTIVTA (agro service) provided trainings and distributed materials about the “Chemicals and Diseases” to the women and men farmers.

When Nursery was ready women were so happy they even put special plant in the middle of the field to protect the field from “bad eyes”.

SMART sponsored an exposure trip of women and men farmers, trader, and Head of Municipality to Turkey to learn about modern sowing and growing techniques, marketing and local aggregation management being done by farmers cooperatives, and the product quality standards being applied in the main wholesale markets

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Project Trends – Strawberry

There is tremendous potential in economic opportunity and enterprise profits in this supply chain

We now know how to produce the right variety more efficiently in order to sell at a competitive price

We have identified the potential partners both for fresh market and processor chains

Challenge is in efficiently disseminating the new knowledge and technology in a sustainable way making sure that the IDPs, wage labourers, women and other small producers will be able to benefit in the economic activity

Progress to date – Strawberry

A micro nursery in 25 acres in Irevanli, Tartar has been started

Three main objectives: to test the modern variety Viktoria under the local climactic and soil conditions; produce and disseminate the planting materials to other small producers; generate new information and lessons to disseminate to all market players in the Central Region and to the local government.

If results prove positive, the micro nursery will be able to supply 80,000 modern planting materials enough to sow a total of 1 hectare in the coming sowing season in November 2012

SMART sponsored an exposure trip of women and men farmers, trader, and Head of Municipality to Turkey to learn about modern sowing and growing techniques, marketing and local aggregation management being done by farmers cooperatives, and the product quality standards being applied in the main wholesale markets

Progress to date

Addressing the main challenges in strawberry value chain

Transportation cost is the biggest constraint to make it profitable for the existing market actors to trade in new varieties between the main source in Jalilabad and the farmers in Tartar

The success of the micro-nursery in Irevanli is critical to convince the main sources in Jalilabad about the long-term feasibility and profitability of co-investing in satellite nurseries in the Central Region

Open field days of the micro nursery are planned in May – July back-to-back with meetings between farmers and market actors

The business case will be finalised based on verified results in July – September to form the basis of concrete negotiations between interested farmers and willing service providers

Thank you!