Smallholder farmer participation in local and regional food aid procurement:Assessing the benefits and challenges in southwestern Uganda

Abstract

Local and regional food aid procurement (LRP) – the purchase and distribution of food aid within andbetween developing countries – has recently become a common occurrence. In contrast to traditionalmethods of food aid provision, which are costly cross-border operations and often slow to respond duringemergencies, LRP aims to combat food insecurity in a more effective, economical and contained manner.There is a limited amount of research concerning smallholder involvement in small-scale LRP initiatives.This article explores LRP's impact on smallholder farmers participating in a World Food Programme(WFP) procurement project in southwestern Uganda. It concludes that LRP has some benefits, includingproviding a ready market and empowering farmers, but WFP's procurement contract development,payment procedures and pricing mechanisms, and difficulties of ensuring participants' household foodsecurity, present challenges.