these and other changes are required to the function of mard if it is going to serve a more marketbased agricultural sector certain functions such as international cooperation policy analysis sectoral monitoring and standard setting will need to be done at a much higher level while others such as undertaking commercial activities and certain licensing practices will need to be reduced moving forward the government will have to ensure a level playing field if it expects the private sector to participate fully in the development of the agricultural sector consequently many farmers are failing to obtain the benefits from acting collaboratively to secure better inputs and outputs