Product processing, marketing, transport, and sales are the main aspects of commercialization. While emphasis is often placed on the process of production itself—the farming, fishing, or collection of wild products—the importance of the commercialization process is sometimes under-appreciated. That’s unfortunate, because commercialization factors are the most frequent obstacles to higher cash income from ecosystems. A recent study in Mexico and Bolivia found that marketing and sales—not production issues—were the main constraints to successfully turning nontimber forest products like resins, basket-weaving materials, honey, bamboo, and bark into successful commercial products (Marshall et al. 2003:130, 135).

These constraints manifest in a variety of ways. Rural farmers and fishers may lack a way to get their products efficiently to market. Forest collectors may not know how to effectively price their product, may lack information on how to improve their product’s quality or consumer acceptability, and may not know how to build demand in specialty markets in urban areas or among tourists. Guides or others serving the ecotourist market may lack contacts, experience, or language skills to market their unique services. It is not surprising that research suggests an urgent need for better business planning, market analysis, and market development if rural ecosystem users are to find commercial success (Marshall et al. 2003:135).

To a certain extent, sheer lack of information on current market conditions and trends contributes to lack of marketing power. New information services can help with this. In Uganda a coalition of NGOs, government agencies, and private companies operates FOODNET, a regional network that collects weekly or daily price information on commodities. Rural farmers access the information through radio broadcasts, the Internet, and cell phones. The service, which reaches seven million people weekly, prevents middlemen from manipulating prices to undercut producers. Farmers estimate that the service has raised their return on products by 5-15 percent (WRI 2005).

But the problem goes deeper as well—to a lack of training in business planning. NGOs and state extension services can be important partners in providing the training and technical support to meet these planning and marketing needs. For example, Mexico’s PROCYMAF program, cofinanced by the government and the World Bank, offers training to community enterprises in forest management as well as marketing information for wood and nonwood products. The program has financed over 60 marketing studies and 10-12 pilot projects to test the viability of nontimber forest product enterprises (Scherr et al. 2003:50, 57).