Antananarivo, MadagascarAs the Director of Operations for LFL in Madagascar, an animal feed company that generates about 100,000 tons of feed annually, Naujaven Dabydin can tell us a lot about the frustration companies face sourcing locally. Even though Naujaven and his company want nothing more than to buy from small farmers who are producing the maize, soya and minerals that the company needs to buy, those producers are largely inaccessible, nearly impossible to trace, and will break their contracts to sell to the highest bidder in the market if they feel it’s in their best interest. So LFL, along with many other companies, end up importing from all over the globe instead of buying locally, simply because they can’t rely on the quality, quantity and availability of goods coming from local markets. What LFL needs is production information in various regions, quantity of product harvested, and information on local weather-- Naujaven reminds us that truly useful market information goes far beyond prices and historical data, but rather needs to be more focused, real-time information coming directly from the field. LFL realizes that buying locally helps everyone, raising incomes for those that need it most, and to that end they offer technical advice to local growers through seminars, in-house trainings and outfield advisory services. But Naujaven and LFL still recognize that the only way to truly secure the market is to have a steady stream of real-time information coming from the field, from the producers themselves, not the other way around.
