The government of Tonga, GroFed and FAO are promoting contract farming as a means to coordinate links between farmers and agribusiness firms
FAO has recently conducted a contract farming training workshop on planning and implementing contract farming operations in Tonga. A total of 26 participants from the Ministry of Agriculture and Food and Forests, private sector actors, farmers and farmers’ group organisation actively participated in this training workshop.
Commenting on the initiative, Shukrullah Sherzard, FAO agribusiness consultant, said, “Contract farming is one of the proven mechanisms that can be promoted to improve efficiency and inclusiveness in transforming food and agriculture systems.”
The aim is to establish conditions between a buyer and farmers for the production and marketing of a farm product or products.
Under contract farming, producers commit to the future delivery of farm products to a buyer under agreed specifications that can include prices, production technologies, quality characteristics and production delivery dates, among other mutually agreed conditions.
Contract farming focuses on promoting agricultural production, thereby allowing farmers to earn increased revenue and buyers to obtain a return on their investments.
Sherzad further explained, “One of the outputs of this project is to facilitate improved farmer linkages to market through the adoption of service contracts.”
