Facilitation Contact Groups Brief

The benefits of a value chain facilitation activity can extend to firms, farms, households and individuals that do not have direct contact with the set of interventions (goods or services) provided by the activity. When smallholder farmers are the target beneficiaries of agricultural value chain activities, they might be reached through other firms in the value chain, such as product buyers, suppliers of supporting services, or input suppliers. For example, a facilitation activity might collaborate with agricultural input suppliers in order to expand smallholder access to—and use of—high quality inputs and improved technologies intended to increase smallholder productivity, profits and income. Instead of working directly with smallholder farmers, implementers collaborate with firms at other functional levels of the value chain, encouraging these primary contact firms to adopt more inclusive business practices and/or offer products and services that help to expand market-based opportunities for target beneficiaries.