Last month consultant Sharon Hesp visited India under assignment for IDH, the Sustainable Trade Initiative, for which NewForesight is currently conducting a study on services delivered to farmers. This study is part of the larger assignment for IDH on Service Delivery Models (SDM), which you can read about here.

In light of this specific study, Sharon travelled to the world’s hub for spices to explore the services provided by ITC Limited to chili pepper farmers in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

The field visit focused on collecting the necessary data to assess the economic sustainability of a specific SDM for the various stakeholders involved. Besides determining the economic sustainability of a specific SDM, the collected data also contributes to the design of a tool that can be used to assess economic sustainability of different SDMs. The tool combines user-friendliness, depth within cases, and comparability across cases. Several case studies have been conducted on services delivered to coffee and cocoa farmers. By expanding the study to include other crops, such as chili peppers, we hope to take the next step towards a tool that is applicable across many agricultural sectors.

To gain insight in the spices sector and meet all relevant stakeholders the visit kicked off with attending the World Spices Congress in Ahmedabad. To see how service delivery looks like in the field our consultant then visited the chili pepper farmers nearby Warangal. The visit ended in the ITC Spices office in Guntur where relevant data was collected. All data is currently being processed and the final report is expected in mid May. Another case study on spices is also underway.

Picture Copyright Aaron Joel Santos