Scaling Impact Through Agricultural Input and Output Markets: A Synthesis and Troubleshooting Guide

Over the course of three years, the Leveraging Economic Opportunities (LEO) activity conducted secondary and primary research on scaling impact through agricultural input and output markets. This research looked at successful approaches in scaling smallholders’ access to input and output markets across dozens of cases, as well as ex-post assessments of two agricultural projects that used a market systems development approach in Cambodia and Zambia.

Building on this, this paper is designed to provide two key features:

• a summary of empirical learning, drawing from across this body of work on scaling impact 
• a series of practical recommendations and references to outside resources to help guide projects focused on achieving impact through technology and behavior adoption via agricultural input and output markets. 

The content is oriented toward those applying a market systems facilitation approach, though also relevant to those working on more traditional, subsidy-based projects as well.