The purpose of the Fostering Agricultural Markets Activity (FARMA) is to provide technical assistance in Bosnia Herzegovina (BiH) agricultural sub-sectors through demand driven assistance aimed at improved competitiveness of BiH agricultural products. FARMA is to expand environmentally sustainable production, processing, and sales of value-added agricultural products. The expected result of FARMA is contribution to poverty reduction.

The Fostering Agriculture Markets Activity (FARMA) in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is a $13.6 million, three-year (plus option year) program co-financed by USAID and Sida and managed by Chemonics International. Bosnia and Herzegovina is in a unique position in the current global economic environment to spur economic growth and set the foundation for sustained access to regional and international markets. In FARMA, Sida and USAID have created a program that will help BiH to accomplish several critical objectives, such as increasing agricultural competitiveness, meeting EU accession standards, reducing poverty by expanding environmentally sustainable production, and increasing sales, exports, and employment. FARMA’s approach focuses on four integrated components:

• Building sustainable market linkages for BiH producers
• Increasing access to finance
• Building the capacity of producer organizations’ and other counterparts and
• Enhancing the policy environment to benefit competitiveness of BiH agricultural goods

In order to attain project goals, FARMA staff will use various tools, including Development Fund (DF) and Partners Fund (PF), for targeted subcontracts to local partners. Together, we refer to this overarching fund as the Partners Development Fund (PDF). The main focus of grants awarded by FARMA is to build the capacity of actors in specific commodity chains and ultimately to increase sales, investment, and employment.

FARMA’s agribusiness portfolio managers and coordinators are organized by the selected sub-sectors as well as geographically. We expect that agribusiness portfolio managers and coordinators located in Banja Luka, Tuzla and Mostar (and possibly Bihac and Trebinje) will travel frequently in their respective regions, providing assistance to municipalities of the region. Portfolio managers will focus efforts on their sector across all of the regions, coordinating with the regional offices and working closely with the chief of party, standards/EU integration, agricultural finance, and grants staff. While individuals will provide in-depth expertise in their areas, it will be as a team that FARMA identifies priority interventions and counterparts.

Portfolio coordinators will assist portfolio managers in carrying out strategic activities in their sector. They will use their broad agricultural backgrounds to serve as resources to other portfolio managers in different project office locations, traveling to meet a different sector’s counterparts and provide targeted assistance as needed. FARMA will also seek to utilize local organizations when appropriate to carry out specific activities, focusing on building the capacity of select sectoral and regional institutions.