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Component 04
From harvest to buyer
A higher yield that nobody buys is not income. This component links farmer organisations to processors, aggregators and finance, so that what the programme helps grow can be sold at a price worth the season's work.
The problem
Selling one bag at a time, to whoever arrives first
A farmer with a good harvest and no buyer is in a weak position. Produce deteriorates, the household needs cash, and the first trader through the village sets the price. Selling individually, at the moment of greatest need, is how a productive season still ends in a poor one.
The programme treats this as an organisational problem rather than a farming one. An association that can store, grade and sell collectively — under an agreement made before planting — negotiates from a different position entirely.
- Price set at the farm gate by the buyer
- Sold immediately, whatever the season's price
- No grading, so no quality premium
- Losses while waiting for a trader
- Price agreed in advance, in writing
- Stored and sold when the price is right
- Graded and dried to a standard buyers pay for
- Collected in volume from one point
How a linkage is built
Five steps from association to contract
Organise
A functioning executive, a membership register and a bank account. Without these an association cannot hold a contract or receive payment.
Record and plan
Business planning and simple bookkeeping, so the group knows its production volume and its costs before it negotiates.
Meet the buyer
District business-to-business meetings bring processors and exporters to the associations, with the programme present but not negotiating on their behalf.
Agree in writing
Volume, quality standard, collection point and price mechanism, signed before the season starts rather than at the farm gate afterwards.
Deliver and get paid
Aggregation at a single point, graded to the agreed standard, with payment through the association account so members are paid on record.
Where it has got to
Market linkage against target
PMU M&E database · 30 June 2026
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Who is buying
Off-takers working with programme associations
Published so that farmer organisations can see who operates in their chain, and so that buyers can find the associations rather than the other way round.
Sierra Akker Group
ExporterBuys fermented and dried beans at grade one premium, collecting at the aggregation centre.
Kambia Rice Millers Association
ProcessorContracts for paddy at a price agreed before planting.
Southern Oil Processors Ltd
ProcessorPurchases fresh fruit bunches on a weekly collection schedule.
Freetown Fresh Markets
AggregatorWeekly dry-season vegetable offtake for Freetown retail.
Businesses interested in sourcing from programme associations can write to the Programme Management Unit. The programme introduces and facilitates; it does not broker, guarantee volumes or set prices. Contact the PMU
Where produce is gathered
Aggregation centres
A buyer will collect in volume from one point but rarely from twenty villages. These are the points.
| District | Facility | Value chain | Farmers served | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kenema | Fermentation and drying centre | Cocoa | 640 | Operating |
| Bombali | Store and threshing floor | Rice / IVS | 820 | Operating |
| Pujehun | Small-scale processing unit | Oil palm | 410 | Operating |
| Kambia | Collection and grading shed | Vegetables | — | Under construction |
Alongside the linkages
What makes an agreement hold
Working capital at the right moment
Access to rural finance and matching grants, so an association can hold produce for a better price instead of selling to meet an immediate need.
Meeting the standard that earns a premium
Fermentation, drying and grading discipline. A buyer pays more for grade one, and only consistent quality keeps them returning.
Services sold, not labour hired
Threshing, transport and spraying run as businesses by young people from the same chiefdom, paid by the associations that use them.
A signed agreement is not the same as a sustained relationship, and sales facilitated during the programme are not proof that a linkage survives without it. Whether these arrangements hold once support ends is measured at endline, not now.
See this in the districts
Farmer stories carry the district, the value chain and the measured outcome for each association.
