The Seas of Change Initiative is looking back on the ‘From Islands of Success to Seas of Change’ learning workshop on scaling inclusive agri-food markets, held on 11-13 April 2012. Thanks to the input from all participants the event was seen as a great success. The strong presence of local and international businesses and the interactions with NGOs, researchers and policy makers that made this possible was experienced as one of the highlights.

Quite some debate emerged during the event about the concept of ‘inclusive’ agri-food markets. The discussions illustrated how important it is to understand the incentives that make it possible for small-scale producers and small enterprises to become effective business partners with larger national or international firms. In turn, the discussion often returned to the need for the right sort of investments and the importance of ‘pre-commercial’ financing in a transition phase. A great deal of discussion also focused on the implications for policy and how NGOs and research can be effective in supporting inclusive business approaches.

During the Seas of Change workshop we collectively generated suggestions on where attention is needed for moving forward. A more detailed report will be made available on this website shortly.