AM PARTNERS

“Rural Enterprise and Small-Scale Commercial Agriculture Development” Project, implemented by “Agricultural Reform Support” PIU, launched in 2006. It is financed through the loan resources of the World Bank. The overall objective of the Project is: a) to ensure the accessibility of markets for farmers and rural entrepreneurs, b)  expand their employment opportunities by promoting private and public market-oriented investments in rural areas.  

The Project has 3 components, that represent agricultural promotion tools in the following aspects:

1. Supporting rural enterprises and agri-processors through the improvement of financial services and promotion of rural business links,
2. Promoting the development of rural households (farms) via strengthening and management of the decentralized agricultural advisory system, provision of business consulting, improvement of livestock services and enhancement of the capacities in seeds and sapling production,  
3. Economic development of communities via improved rural infrastructures.

“Strengthening seed and sapling market” is one of the sub-components of “Developing rural households/farms” Component. It aimed to promote the operations of farmers engaged in seed/sapling production in Armenia, and contribute to their productivity enhancement and production quality  improvement. This would have helped seed producers foster the trust of seed users in their products and would have enabled seed users to benefit from greater opportunities of acquiring high quality certified seeds.  

Activities implemented under the sub-component “Strengthening seed and sapling market” include measures for the development of current seeds regulations, organization of trainings targeted at seed production specialists and improvement of the laboratory capacities of the “Seed Agency”.

To assess the impact of the Project on the operations of seed producers and seed users, the Consultant has undertaken the following activities:

• Studying the data concerning the intervention
• Defining the impact indicators
• Defining the criteria for impact indicators
• Impact indicators weights.

Under the Project, the certification of seeds/sapling was conducted for 6 types of crops, including cereals, vegetables, legumes, fodder crops, potatoes and fruits/grapes.  

To conduct the impact assessment of the intervention, the Consultant, using various channels, obtained data from several sources:

• Study of the descriptive documents of the intervention
• Information obtained from the “Seed Agency”
• Survey among the beneficiaries.

This survey on the impact assessment of the Project sub-component “Strengthening seed and sapling market” gives an overall idea as to what changes have occurred in the operations of the sub-component beneficiaries during 2006-2008. Thus,  

• Strengthening seeds/sapling market interventions have established substantial orderliness in the field. The survey findings reveal that about a dozen of farmers are currently in the process of certification.   
• During the recent 3-4 years, certified seed producers have expanded the scope of their clients. This means that a greater number of farmers were able to use high quality seeds which has positively impacted the results of their activities.  
• The use of better quality seeds led to significant differences in the operations of farmers using certified and non-certified seeds. The quantity of seeds used and the crop yield in case of the most of the certified seed users increased during 2006-2008.