Service provider enterprises and producer groups (ESOP) : Soya Nyo in Togo

This chapter presents an innovative scheme to include small-scale farmers in markets in Togo, organized around the development of a soybean company, Soya Nyo. This scheme is part of a programme promoting collaboration between service providers and producer organizations, managed by the International Centre for Development and Research (CIDR), a French non-governmental organization. This programme, known by its French acronym ESOP (Entreprises de services et organisations de producteurs) [service provider enterprises and producer groups], aims to help family farms access stable and remunerative markets by targeting local urban markets, and by promoting services to improve production. It relies on long-term cooperation between producers' organizations and enterprises. The programme currently consists of 25 initiatives: 14 in West Africa (including 4 in Togo), 2 in Madagascar, and 9 in Ethiopia. This case describes the first initiative that was established, Soya Nyo. This case is based on a review of documents on the CIDR approach and on Soya Nyo's economic and financial performance. We gathered field data in the Notsé region, where the enterprise is based, on the producers who supply produce to the enterprise and who are its shareholders. The producers live in villages in Haho prefecture, within 50 km of Notsé. We conducted semi-structured interviews and focus groups from end of January to May 2007 with about 370 producers from 38 groups out of the 48 working with Soya Nyo, including the 24 groups that are shareholders in the enterprise. The data consist mainly of producers' perception, their situation, their costs and benefits, and their position in the scheme. We also interviewed managers of Soya Nyo and the local support organizations that promote the CIDR programme in Togo. We tried to measure the indirect impacts of the organization through interviews and meetings with producers who do not participate in the scheme, other actors in the soybean supply chain (such as customers and competitors), and local actors external to the supply chain (for example, actors in the cotton value chain and traditional traders). (Résumé d'auteur