Supply capacity - Japan

The "One Village One Product" movement was spread in the 1970s. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) adopted a version of the scheme in the early 2000s as a way of encouraging development in LDCs and other developing countries. The OVOP movement works through communities by adding value to products using locally available resources through processing, quality control, and marketing. The objective of the OVOP movement is to promote the OVOP concept of economic development at community level, through (i) promoting value adding technologies, such as agro-processing, quality control, and packaging; (ii) facilitating small-scale business skills development at the community level; and (iii) promoting market linkages between products and services from communities and domestic/international markets. The OVOP concept is now being replicated as a model of enterprise development in many countries, including Thailand, Malawi, Malaysia, the Philippines, Mongolia, and China. The original concept stands on three pillars: “Think Globally Act Locally,” “Self-Reliance and Creativity” and “Human Resource Development.” The OVOP movement is spread worldwide from Asia to Africa through to Central America. Through the campaign, which started in February 2006, products such as craftwork items, textiles and processed foods from nations in Asia, Africa, Oceania and Central America have been introduced to the Japanese Market.

The approach has been effective increasing the income of smallholders in horticulture as it develops both the technical and managerial capacities of farmers to practice market-oriented horticultural farming. Some of the unique characteristics of the approach include conducting market surveys by farmers, establishing business linkages between farmers and business service providers, and promoting gender equality with an explicit purpose of strengthening farming couples’ relationships as “partners for farm management.” As the result of the approach, the farmers’ income from horticulture has grown significantly, and their livelihoods have improved not only during the intervention period but also for years after the intervention. The farmer groups are now self-reliant and creative in expanding their horticultural farming businesses. JICA is now applying this SHEP Approach to other African countries so that the lives of small-scale farmers will be uplifted through market-oriented farming.