The FAO Investment Centre held its annual internal conference “TCI Investment Days” dedicated to the sharing of project experience from all over the world. As we wrote earlier, this year FAO implemented a technical assistance project in the Murghab district that supported the formation of a yak herders’ group and facilitated its access to the premium meat market of the capital city.

FAO has proclaimed 2014 the Year of Family Farming and for this very reason the topic of "How to overcome the curse of smallness" was a main theme throughout the conference. The event featured several successful examples of farmers'' group that formed to ease their entry into the market.  In order to learn from a first-hand perspective, this year FAO invited the team of a World Bank project in Honduras that has created market alliances between coffee beans producers and processors (“Rural Competitiveness Project”) as well as the participants of the FAO project in Tajikistan that provided support to the formation of the yak herders’ group and its market linkage.

Abdilaziz Gulomaydarov, the leader of the recently-formed group and the director of the future LLC "Zenghi-Baba", spoke at the conference on behalf of livestock farmers. He underlined in his speech that the adopted to local conditions technologies and market intelligence are the critical elements in livestock farming development.

The implemented project has indeed proved that the ex-ante focusing on buyers’ requirements provides for a successful advancement of the business as it generates demand, hence profit. Farid Shirinjonov, Manager of  Segafredo Cafe Dushanbe spoke for the hotel, restaurant and catering (HORECA) sector. Segafredo has just introduced yak meat into its premium menu, demonstrating by its support of the domestic producers and its innovative approach to work.

Participation of project beneficiaries in such a conference of the FAO Investment Centre is unprecedented. It is gratifying that the representatives of Tajikistan were pioneers of such an important dialogue.