In Sierra Leone, efforts to move farmer groups from subsistence to commercial activity are gaining momentum. But working as business partners requires clarity on what these organisations can deliver.
Until recently, Farmer-Based Organisations (FBOs) lacked reliable data on volumes, quality, and consistency of supply, alongside uneven governance and weak financial records. For off-takers, processors, and financiers, this made collaboration risky, if not unfeasible.
The Food and Agriculture Resilience Mission – Pillar 3 (FARM P3), supports FBOs in better assessing, organising, and presenting their capacities before engaging with the market.
Using the Farmers’ Enterprise Assessment Tool Towards Resilient, Inclusive and Sustainable Agri-based Enterprise (FEAT-to-RISE) tool — developed by the Asian Farmers’ Association for Sustainable Rural Development (AFA)— 19 FBOs across nine districts were assessed, covering cassava, rice, vegetables, cocoa, and oil palm, and reaching 570 farmers.
Across five areas — governance, financial stability, market access, inclusivity, and sustainability — FBOs scored an average of 33%, with around 90% still at an early stage of commercial development.
The gaps are not surprising: weak financial documentation, limited use of formal contracts, and low aggregation capacity. What is new is that FBOs can now clearly see these gaps, compare themselves, and act on them.
Rather than generic support, FARM P3 enables targeted interventions aligned with actual capacity gaps, supporting FBOs to move step by step from subsistence toward structured commercial activity. The data is now informing the activities of the Agricultural Value Chain Development Project (AVDP), from capacity building to partnership structuring.
Importantly, FBOs are starting to engage with the tool, with the longer-term objective of using it as a management instrument to strengthen internal decision-making and organisational performance beyond external assessment.
The lesson for private sector engagement
Private actors engage when risk is understood and manageable. That starts with clear, reliable data on partner capabilities. FARM P3 shows that private sector engagement is not about connections alone. It is about building counterparts that meet commercial standards.
FARM P3 globally
Launched by France under the EU Council Presidency and hosted by IFAD, FARM P3 supports opportunities in Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Zimbabwe within existing investment projects where private sector involvement and collaboration with development partners adds value in priority value chains.
For more information and updates, visit the FARM P3 webpage at Food and Agriculture Resilience Mission – Pillar 3 (FARM P3).
FARM P3 in Sierra Leone
In Sierra Leone, the Food and Agriculture Resilience Mission – Pillar 3 (FARM P3), embedded in the Agricultural Value Chain Development Project (AVDP), supports public projects to work more effectively with the private sector and expand market access for smallholders.
FARM P3 provides tailored capacity building and on-the job support to Project Management Units so they can better support farmer organisations and facilitate partnerships.
Running until June 2026, FARM P3 is expected to indirectly benefit up to 478,000 farmer households. It also generates lessons to inform IFAD’s Private Sector Strategy, particularly on how to make public–private collaboration more effective.
Read more about the FARM P3 pilot in Sierra Leone here.
FEAT-to-RISE
The FEAT to Rise tool assesses the operational and institutional capacities of Farmers’ Organizations (FOs) by identifying their strengths and weaknesses across five performance areas (i.e., governance, financial stability, market access, inclusivity and sustainability). This enables tailored support to meet FOs’ needs and allows investment readiness to be assessed over time.
FEAT to Rise was developed by AFA and has been applied across several EU- and IFAD-funded grant programmes (e.g., the Asia-Pacific Farmers’ Programme and the Farmers’ Organizations for Asia Programme), as well as in a number of IFAD-funded loan programmes, including the Agriculture Services Programme for an Inclusive Rural Economy and Agricultural Trade (ASPIRE-AT) in Cambodia.
AUTHORS
Aimée Kourgansky
PHOTO
© IFAD/Simon de Swardt
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