The role of advisors in agribusiness is ever changing. Whereas conventional advisors mainly work with farmers, 2SCALE turned these intermediaries into coaches of local business partnerships in a particular value chain. As this shift showed impressive results, such as the embedding of support costs within the value chain, 2SCALE explains the approach of its service delivery model and lessons learned in its second thematic paper “Strengthening business support services for agribusiness partnerships”.
Support services within agribusiness clusters
In 2SCALE, the role and terms of reference of agribusiness advisors moved from being mostly technical advisors for farmers to facilitators and on-the-job coaches of local business actor networks formed as partnerships around a producer organizations: the agribusiness clusters (ABCs).
One of the main tasks of the coaches is to coordinate the actions within the ABC. The coaches herein support the identification of factors that hinder the development of the business actors and come up with innovative alternatives and opportunities that can shake ABC actors out of their old habits and ways of working. The coaches, who in turn are trained and coached by 2SCALE, link value chain partners, like lead (aggregating/processing) firms, producer organisations (POs), traders and agro-input dealers, to each other but also involve other supporting actors, such as banks, insurance companies, transporters, etc. in the ABC.