In particular, criteria focusing on increasing farm incomes and food security featured at the national as well as all the provincial workshops. Improving the quality of life also emerged as an important criterion in the case of the provinces, ranking second in 3, third in 4 and fourth in the remaining one, of the 8 provinces where it was considered. Employment generation ranked second in one province, third in one, and fourth in two. Three other criteria used at the provincial level to prioritize commodities were concerned with questions of land tenure, establishing inheritance, and social prestige, but these typically ranked below those relating to improving incomes, food security, and the general quality of life. The participants at the national workshop identified 13 programs for potential public sector intervention, and evaluated each against the defined criteria.
Agricultural credit is deemed to belong in a group by itself as the leading priority.
Revealing a concern with financing production at the farm level, it emerged as a primary constraint in individual provinces as well. The second-level priorities include programs that not only facilitate production, but also its sale and utilization. The programs comprising the third level of priorities are of an institutional and supporting nature. Their lower scores should not be construed to mean that they are considered unimportant. It probably reflects the fact that their benefits in terms of production and incomes are less apparent.