Abstract:

Agricultural research and development organizations are increasingly under pressure to shift from enhancing productivity of food
crops to improving profitability and competitiveness of small-scale farming, and linking smallholder farmers to more profitable
markets. What is not obvious however, is how to make small-scale farming more market orientated, and how to effectively integrate
participatory research approaches to marketing and agroenterprisi development. This paper outlines ah integrated approach fbr
demand-driven and market-orientated agricultural research and rural agro-enterprise development This approach termed Enabling
Rural Innovation (ERI) offers a practical framework to link farmer participatory research and market research in a way that empowers farmers to better manage their resources and offers them prospects of an upward spiral out of poverty. ERI uses participatory processes to build the capacities of farmers' groups and rural communities in marginal areas to identify and evaluate market opportunities, develop profitable agroenterprises, intcnsifjz production through experimentation, while sustaining the resources upon which their
livelihoods depend. The approach emphasizes integrating scientific expertise with farmer knowledge, strengthening social organization and entrepreneurial organizations through efleclive partnership between research, development and rural communities. By strengthening human and social capital, ERI encompasses eflective and proactive strategies for promoting gender and equity in the access to market opportunities and improved technologies, and in the distribution of benefits and additional incomes.. Results of action research
applying the ERI approach in pilot sites in Malawi, Uganda and Tanzania show that small-scale fanners are not always attracted by
higher economic returns. Rather they use a range of economic and non-cconoinic criteria fbr selecting lheir existing crops and livestock
fbr new markets, as well as new crops (or new markets. Evaluation of market opportunities stimulates farmers' experimentation io
reduce risks, access new technologies, and improve the productivity and competitiveness of the selected enterprises. Lessons learned
suggest that building and sustaining quality partnerships between research and development organizations, government, private
agribusiness sector; and building necessary amount of human and social capital over a certain period of lime arc critical fbr achieving
success in small- scale agroenterprise development. This however, requires that an explicit scaling up strategy be mapped out to link
successful community processes to meso and maero level market institutions at the national and regional levels.