Crop Post Harvest Programme

IDE (INDIA) undertook a crop post harvest program (CPHP) in 1999 supported by DFID through NR International. This initiative is an entirely novel type of development intervention. It involves identifying demand for niche technologies among the poor and establishing technology development, production and distribution systems. IDEI has developed this approach over the last decade in eastern India and Bangladesh. Its novelty rests on two features.

Firstly, it uses commercial marketing principles to identify market demand and establish retail networks. Viable opportunity exists for rural entrepreneurs, but these often require market and technology development interventions before individual entrepreneurs will invest and create a supply chain. IDE (I) fills this critical 'pre-competitive' gap.

Secondly, it uses networks of partners in the research, production, distribution and rural development sectors. Relationships are developed and managed to create a total system of technology development and supply. This feature is particularly critical because it builds capacity in a system that links the poor, through markets, to science and technology.

This approach has recently been used as a way of adapting the post-harvest technology system of small-scale tomato producers to cope with the urgent demand for a new technology resulting from a change in government environmental policy. The initiative concerns the partnerships and systems established to develop and supply a packaging alternative to wooden tomato boxes, a key cause of unsustainable timber exploitation in tomato production and adjacent areas.

As such, the initiative demonstrates the way that this farsighted type of intervention, pioneered by IDE (I), can address the goals of poverty reduction, biodiversity conservation, and environmental protection.

Within 3 years, IDE (I) has:

• Investigated the packaging issue, estimating user demand in target communities and understanding production, distribution and market systems (for both existing packaging technology and for tomatoes) in the context of livelihood options and strategies pursued by small-scale producers.

• Identified a development partner who designed and produced prototype cardboard cartons. After testing with farmers, and conducting a major trial when 1,000 cartons were transported from field to market, fourth-generation cartons are in commercial production in time for the 2002 season.

• Established partnerships with self-help groups, grass-root NGOs, farmers, traders, transporters, and buyers that ensure the product's acceptability in the market.

• Modified design and construction of cartons, and built a network of manufacturers prepared to make them, some so committed as to invest significantly in the product.

• Formed a distribution network to make sure cartons reach farmers as and when needed. This involves traders, shopkeepers, banks, NGOs and self-help groups all of whom are willing to invest in the product, or to provide credit to farmers.

The initiative looks set to introduce a major change in environmentally sustainable packaging technology that will reach far beyond its present market. At the same time it has reduced the vulnerability of the poor to technological redundancy and market failure inherent in existing packaging development, production and distribution systems.

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