A lot goes into the development of a partnership in 2SCALE. One of the key stages in the partnership development process is the Diagnostic and Design (D&D) Workshop. For the proposed sorghum partnership with Faranaya, a D&D workshop was organized on 8th and 9th of May 2019 at Garu in the Upper East Region of Ghana. The D&D workshop brought together stakeholders within the sorghum supply chain of Faranaya Agri-business Centre Limited. The company is a commercial aggregator of sorghum with smallholder farmers being their largest suppliers whereas Guinness Ghana limited is their single largest off-taker.
June 10, 2019
Partnership Development Process: the D&D Workshop of 2SCALE
The D&D workshop was organized to bring actors together to analyze the process leading to the production and supply of sorghum to Faranaya. As such, the current and desired situation of actors in the supply of sorghum to Faranaya was analyzed. This was to put actors on the same page. Thus, they will be clear on what is expected of each actor in order to move from the current situation to a desirable one in the supply of sorghum. Participants in the workshop included farmers, bullock ploughing services providers, input dealers, financial institutions, processors, aggregators and other service providers.
During the D&D workshop, a number of activities were carried out to reach the intended outcomes. These activities included: identification of actors and their functions, gender mapping at the various levels of the value chain, mind mapping, the rich picture and listing of prepositions. At the end of these activities a value chain map of Faranaya and a pictorial view of the desirable situation (rich picture) of actors were developed. At the same time, a list of prepositions needed to reach the desired situation within the supply chain of Faranaya were documented. Together with the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) team, these prepositions will be used to develop impact pathways for the Faranaya partnership.
A couple of conclusions were drawn at the end of the workshop. Participants were of the opinion that it was important to increase the volume and quality of sorghum to increase income. This will be done by encouraging all actors in the supply process to do their part to make this happen. Central to the participants was the urgent need in the short to medium term to diversify their market by developing nutritious sorghum-based products for low-income consumers to reduce their over-reliance on Guinness Ghana Limited as the main off-taker of their sorghum.
Participants were full of praise for the workshop as it shed light on things they never knew. Mary Amalis, a female aggregator revealed that: "I did not know biscuits can be made from sorghum. I will be pleased if I am trained on how to do it".
Zuug Abdulai, a farmer, on his part, mentioned that: "we never knew we could make money from bullock ploughing services. I am happy the partnership is going to increase the number of providers of bullock services".
As next step, a partnership description will be developed and when approved implementation will start. Watch out for updates!
