Chemonics International Call for Applications for USAID's Market II Project

USAID's Maximizing Agricultural Revenue in Key Enterprises and Targeted Sites (MARKETS II) project, implemented by Chemonics International Inc., is seeking applications from Nigerian organizations to implement activities that promote agricultural development through increased private sector participation and investment in the sector, raising income, increasing employment, attaining food security, and reducing poverty.

The USAID-funded MARKETS II project focuses on the large population of smallholder farmers with between 1 to 5 hectares of land under cultivation. An estimated 80% and 90% of all agricultural plots in Nigeria are less than 2 hectares in size. Given that about 60% to 80% of the workforce on such smallholdings may be women (depending on crop and region); MARKETS II will seek to benefit them especially. The project will continue to make agro-processors central to the value chain and sector development to increase rural incomes and jobs. The program shall privilege women, youth, and the very poor by systematically seeking to incorporate these groups into all project activities. The project is also designed to be financially, economically and environmentally sustainable. MARKETS II will work with local banks and other lenders, e.g., MFIs, MFBs, and NGOs, to update their systems, staff, evaluation procedures, collateral requirements and the like to facilitate lending to smallholders.

The ultimate goal of MARKETS II is to improve the performance of Nigerian poor rural farmers or smallholders, their incomes and nutrition through proven private sector demand driven market interventions, while focusing on five intermediate results:

1. Producers capacity developed and organizations strengthened.
2. Access to agricultural inputs increased.
3. Technology generation and deployment expanded.
4. Water and soil management strengthened.
5. Access to finance increased.

The Project is therefore calling for application from interested competent service providers who would provide services to:
Implement and monitor out-grower schemes in one or more of the MARKETS II targeted states for one or more of the following commodities: rice, sorghum, soybeans, maize, aquaculture, cocoa, and/or cassava. This includes:

• Promoting the value chain approach and coordinate among stakeholders to focus efforts and streamline roles
• Promoting best practices for productivity measures among nucleus farmers from site selection to post- harvest storage and carefully monitor the demonstration and individual farms to ensure the adoption of correct management practices.
• Strengthening extension service capability and promote best practices through farmer training events and dissemination of educational materials
• Organizing and holding multiple training events. For each planting season and for each crop, they will train lead farmers in pre-season, in-season (green field days), and post-harvest best practices. Prior to the training events, the Subcontractor will design the training modules for each of these events based on the crop and the anticipated capabilities of farmer groups, with the assumption that more experienced farmer groups are expected to learn more technologically advanced techniques.
• Conducting a Cost, Yield, and Income Survey for each crop. These surveys will commence after planting and be completed after each harvest.
• Keeping meticulous records about program activities including meetings, training events, and challenges their staff face working in the field and conveying this information in monthly reports and an annual report.

Application Closing Date
15th February, 2013

Method of Application
All applications should include the organization’s brochure and three commercial or business references. and should be submitted via email, to the attention of GSF Manager at:
[email protected]