Small Farmers, Big Change: Lessons from Oxfam’s agricultural programmes: An overview

Overview

Oxfam’s Global Agricultural Scale Up Initiative (GASUI) was launched in 2005 with the aims of reducing poverty for millions of smallholder farmers, particularly women; driving economic growth by linking farmers into new and wider market opportunities; and advocating for increased donor, government, and private sector investment to support smallholder farming. For Oxfam, ‘scale-up’ refers to increasing both the reach and quality of Oxfam’s agricultural programming and thereby demonstrating to governments, donors, and development actors how agriculture can contribute to economic development and poverty reduction. The initiative’s main strategy is to empower smallholder farmers to organize and engage effectively and equitably in agricultural markets and value chains. This overview is the first of nine Programme Insights papers in the ‘Small Farmers, Big Change’ series contained in this volume. The papers draw on learning from GASUI and on wider learning from Oxfam GB’s agricultural markets-based programming, as well as from programmes implemented by Oxfam India.