SPECIFYING THE PARTNERS' ROLES

When a smallholder or a group of smallholders agree to produce a crop for sale to a company, and an NGO agrees to facilitate the partnership, it is very important that the roles and responsibilities of each partner are clearly defined and understood by all. If this is not done, experience has shown that smallholders and companies will often have unrealistic expectations of what the other party will do or provide, and when these expectations are not satisfied both will expect the facilitator to fill the gap and perform roles which should rightly be the responsibility of either the smallholders or the company.

As a general rule the following division of functions is recommended.

• The smallholder's role is to grow the crop and sell it to the company, working with company and intermediaries through a Producers' Group.
• The company's role is to recruit the farmers, to finance and otherwise support their production, and to buy process and market the product.
• The intermediary's role is to promote the smallholder-company link; support producer group formation and train and mediate between smallholders and the company.

Sometimes additional functions may have to be taken on by one or other of the partners. If this is done it is important to avoid setting a precedent, through any partner taking on a role which it cannot then sustain.