The project found very few agroenterprises in the target districts. Toward the end of the project, the focus switched to providing agribusiness skills to the higher-performing farmer households that had already been trained in the new technologies. A number of examples emerged where these farmer households moved along the production chain and got involved in the production and/or sale of farm inputs to other farmers—e.g., chicks for chicken farming, fingerlings for fish farming, chicken feed, vaccines. A positive side-effect of this process was the commercial incentive for these farm input suppliers to conduct extension services free, or for a small fee, to promote the sale of their farm input supplies. These were generally nonpoor farmers with sufficient resources of their own to develop these activities. However, the project also benefited poor farmers to a significant extent.
Agriculture Sector Development Program