Agribusiness Advisory Services
One of the most crucial challenges developing countries face in their endeavour to end poverty and hunger is accelerating sustainable agricultural growth and innovation.
Farmers need access to effective advisory services in addition to appropriate agricultural inputs to overcome this. For decades people have looked to their governments for support; now, agribusinesses worldwide play a vital role in providing farmers with important information, training, and new insights that guide their innovation.
However, agribusinesses providing advisory services face multiple challenges such as:
- How to increase acceptance and encourage adoption?Â
- How and whether to integrate their advisory services with their commercial activities? And,
- How to make their advisory services efficient and economically sustainable?
Existing literature provides very few answers to these pressing questions. Therefore, in 2017, KIT launched its own programme to better understand and optimize agribusiness advisory services (ABAS). We work closely with development partners like Agriterra, cooperatives and the private sector actors to provide customised support to agribusinesses to strengthen the efficiency, impact, and economic viability of their services.
Our Approach & Expertise
KIT offers specialised, expert analysis of all knowledge related services. Consequently, we are able to cover all aspects of the extension provision, from targeting and categorizing farmers and inclusion, to extension communication tools such as video, monitoring and evaluation, and organisation and management. Every effort to strengthen these advisory services needs to be driven by a thorough understanding of our clients’ current performance as well as the need of their own client base, the farmers. Our experts assist agribusinesses by analysing their current performance using tools such as the ‘ABAS Health Check’.
Using a combination of approaches to address challenges
KIT’s analysis is always combined with direct support, capacity building and coaching to address challenges identified. In this way, we address the bottlenecks in the system, the organisation, and at the management level as well as a field staff and implementation level. The ability to work and provide focused support at all levels in an integrated way is crucial for making lasting change.
For instance, we observed in one of our projects in Kenya, with BAMSCOS, a co-operative, that the increased presence and quality of extension following the collaboration with KIT increased the visibility of the service and created a more demand-driven dynamic. Furthermore, it also led to significant increases in volumes of produce processed. (Graphic representation of the results from the BAMSCOS project in Kenya below)
Easily accessible expertise
KIT is renowned for its experts and its vast network of highly qualified locally based experts in various countries. Hence, where needed specialized additional expertise can be mobilized easily from within KIT, its close allies or its vast network of local consultants. Our experts can help answer detailed questions, for example, on digital communication tools or video design, on addressing gender concerns or on realizing financial inclusion. In the post-COVID era, KIT has also developed a hybrid way of working where face-to-face interactions are combined with virtual forms of support.
ABAS Projects
Publications
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Professionalising a dairy cooperative’s extension services: experiences from Kenya
Extension capacity building requires an integrated approach that works at both the management and implementation level to be successful. The functioning of an agricultural extension team can be substantially improved through the increased use of virtual communication – made more apparent by Covid-19 – between team members themselves, and with farmers. Extension services are much […]
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Towards demand-driven services? The role of feedback mechanisms in agribusiness-based advisory services for smallholder farmers
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Research article
In many developing countries, agribusinesses are highly engaged in providing services to smallholder farmers, including agricultural advisory services or extension. As private service providers depend on farmers’ choices, eliciting farmer feedback and learning from farmers’ demands are important. However, the phenomenon of agribusiness-based advisory services has received relatively little attention in the study of advisory […]
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Understanding agribusiness-based advisory services: Findings of a learning trajectory
In many low- and middle-income countries, agribusinesses are deeply engaged in providing services to small- and medium-scale farmers. Such services can include agricultural advisory services or extension. Yet this phenomenon of agribusiness-based advisory services (ABAS) has received relatively little attention in the study of and discussions on advisory services (Babu & Zhou, 2016; IDH, 2016, […]
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Towards a Typology for Agribusiness-based Advisory Services
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Working Paper Series
Model Description and Analysis Extension services play a crucial role in providing farmers with the tools and knowledge they need to increase their yields, improve their food security and livelihoods and build resilience against climate shocks. While private sector-led extension services are increasingly complementing government efforts in many countries, their models and approaches remain widely […]
Downloads
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