Food supply chains are extremely important for food access and livelihoods across Africa, but their role is often overlooked and underappreciated. Under normal conditions, the gap between myth and reality can result in the design of policies and programs with limited or negative impacts on food security and welfare. The shock of COVID‐19 has heightened this disconnect, with potentially dire consequences for food security.

Propelled by urbanization, rising incomes, and changing diets, food markets have been expanding in Africa and South Asia, creating the vast potential for job and income opportunities along food supply chains and, hence, for poverty reduction. The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) that spread to a pandemic in early 2020 provokes enormous setbacks to this expansion. This, however, should provide lessons regarding the importance of resilient and inclusive food systems.

Since the early 2000s, value chain development (VCD) has figured prominently on the agendas of donors, governments, and NGOs in pursuit of market-based options to poverty reduction, food security, gender equity, and other goals. Researchers have shown interest in value chains as a theoretical construct for studying interactions between farmers and markets, while practitioners have focused their attention on approaches and tools for applying VCD in the field.

To guide the design of future agriculture and food value chain interventions, this paper combines two existing spatial food and nutrition security typologies and applies them to the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Apart from estimating absolute and relative inefficiencies along the food system from agricultural potential to nutrition, the integration of both typologies resulted in nine unique low efficiency profiles across the territories and major cities of the Greater Kivu region and Tanganyika.

This chapter discusses how accounting for macroeconomic perspectives when establishing agricultural policies can help African governments ensure that their agricultural sectors become productive, competitive, and lucrative across agricultural value chains. It presents the two-way linkages between agriculture-led growth strategies and macroeconomic policies by focusing on price, fiscal, monetary, exchange rate, and trade policies.

This chapter in the RESAKSS ANNUAL TRENDS AND OUTLOOK REPORT aims to assess the performance of and policy responses to Africa’s rapidly emerging traditional staples value chains, which are dominated by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the processing and trading segments.

This study examined consumers’ purchasing habits and demand in peri-urban Mexico City for three types of tortillas: i) machine-made white, ii) handmade white, and iii) handmade blue. As part of a sensory analysis, the participants rated the blue maize tortillas significantly higher across all categories (overall score, flavour, smell, texture in mouth, texture in hand, size, thickness, and colour). To explore how demand varies according to the intended use, we conducted a choice experiment using three scenarios: in-home daily use, in-home special event, and out-of-home consumption.

Photo credit: World Bank

Photo credit: IFPRI

photo credit: World Bank

It is widely feared that the COVID-19 pandemic will lead to a significant worsening of the food security situation in low and middle-income countries. One reason for this is the disruption of food marketing systems and subsequent changes in farm and consumer prices.

Modern marketing arrangements are increasingly being implemented to assure improved food quality and safety. However, it is not well known how these modern marketing arrangements perform in early stages of roll-out. We study this issue in the case of rural-urban milk value chains in Ethiopia, where modern processing companies – selling branded pasteurized milk – and modern retail have expanded rapidly in recent years.

Women's participation and empowerment in value chains are goals of many development organizations, but there has been limited systematic, rigorous research to track these goals between and within value chains (VCs). We adapt the survey-based project-level Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI) to measure women's and men's empowerment in the abaca, coconut, seaweed, and swine VCs in the Philippines and to investigate the correlates of empowerment.

Despite concerted efforts to develop the fisheries sector in many developing countries, fish demand remains poorly understood due to weak and fragmented domestic markets, particularly in Africa south of the Sahara.

Women’s participation and empowerment in value chains are goals that concern many development organizations, but there has been limited systematic, rigorous research to track these goals between and within value chains (VCs). We use the survey-based project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI) to measure women’s and men’s empowerment in the abaca, coconut, seaweed, and swine VCs in the Philippines. Results show that most women and men in all four VCs are disempowered, but unlike in many other countries, Filipino women in this sample are generally as empowered as men.

• Presents original empirical research on value chains in sub-Saharan Africa
• Studies a large variety of countries and sectors
• Offers contributions by leading scholars

Development largely depends on how given places participate in global economic processes.

Researchers and policymakers have long understood the benefits of crop insurance but have been consistently disappointed by the poor performance of these programs. Rarely have programs seen sizeable take-up rates without support through large government subsidies, and in many countries, demand has been meager even at prices well below fair-market rates.

Extreme weather is causing significant problems for smallholder farmers and others who depend on agricultural value chains in developing countries. Although value-chain analysis can help untangle the complex relationships within agricultural systems, it often has failed to take into account the effects of climate change. Climate-change assessments, meanwhile, often focus on the production node while neglecting other components of the value chain.

It is predicted that rising temperatures and changes in precipitation patterns will substantially impact food systems. Nutritious crops often require water-intensive growing techniques; hence production decisions and yields could be substantially affected by a changing climate. Value chain interventions can help overcome constraints in terms of inputs, storage and transportation that limit access to nutritious foods which may become more pronounced in the face of climate change.

This article presents a review of seven guides for gender-equitable value chain development (VCD). The guides advocate persuasively the integration of gender into VCD programming and raise important issues for designing more inclusive interventions. However, gaps persist in their coverage of gender-based constraints in collective enterprises, the influence of norms on gender relations, and processes to transform inequitable relations through VCD. Guidance for field implementation and links to complementary value chain tools are also limited.

Recent research commissioned by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation shows that by increasing women’s participation in smallholder sourcing and support programs, many international food companies can improve crop productivity and quality, grow the smallholder supply base, and improve access to high-value markets. The guide Improving Opportunities for Women in Smallholder-based Supply Chains: Business case and practical guidance for international food companies presents the results of this research in a practical format.

Chain Value is a potential sector to generate gender equality by promoting women entrepreneurship and integration in the labor market. However, it is marginally analyzed. The aim of this guide is to demonstrate how gender perspective can be incorporated at several stages of the chain value to produce development strategies and with particular concern for the informal sector. The guide is intended for value chain practitioners, gender consultants, researchers and policy makers. The guide is implemented amid the traditional Ethiopian wearing sector.

source: https://cipotato.org/es/comunicados-de-prensa/lanzamiento-libro-experiencias-latinoamericanas-aplicacion-enfoque-cadenas-valor-inclusivas/ (written in Spanish)

• The publication collects the perspectives for the application of value chains and their consequences for rural development, as well as the evolution of the articulation of small producers with markets.

We show theoretically that the presence of basis risk in index insurance makes it a complement to informal risk sharing, implying that index insurance crowds-in risk sharing and leading to a prediction that demand will be higher among groups of individuals that can share risk. We report results from rural Ethiopia from a first attempt to market weather insurance products to existing informal risk-sharing groups. The groups were offered training on risk management and the possible benefits of holding insurance.

In October 2011,the CGIAR program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) and the Index Insurance Innovation Initiative (I4) organized a jointworkshop hosted by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). The workshop was designed to identify and address issues surrounding index‐based insurance for smallholder farmers and the rural poor in the developing world. Emphasis was placed on identifying key areas of research and learning for the academic and policy community to pursue.

In this paper we examine which farmers would be early entrants into weather index insurance markets in Ethiopia, were such markets to develop on a large scale. We do this by examining the determinants of willingness to pay for weather insurance among 1,400 Ethiopian households that have been tracked for 15 years as part of the Ethiopia Rural Household Survey. This provides both historical and current information with which to assess the determinants of demand. We find that educated, rich, and proactive individuals were more likely to purchase insurance.

We conduct a framed field experiment in rural Ethiopia to test the seminal hypothesis that insurance provision induces farmers to take greater, yet profitable, risks. Farmers participated in a game protocol in which they were asked to make a simple decision: whether to purchase fertilizer, and if so, how many bags. The return to fertilizer was dependent on a stochastic weather draw made in each round of the game protocol. In later rounds of the game protocol, a random selection of farmers made this decision in the presence of a stylized weather-index insurance contract.

Asymmetry of information is a fundamental problem in agricultural markets. Production contracts remain incomplete if product quality attributes measured by the buying company remain unobservable for the selling farmer. Opportunistic buyers would report lower than actual output quality, negatively affecting farmers’ compensation given it is directly linked to quality. When farmers factor in the buyer’s opportunistic behavior, underinvestment may occur, negatively affecting farm productivity.

Farmers in rural Bangladesh face multiple sources of uninsured risk to agricultural production and household assets. In this paper, we present results from an experimental demand - elicitation exercise in rural Bangladesh to shed light on smallholder farmers’ interest in formal insurance products. We propose a suite of insurance and savings products, and we randomly vary the price of one insurance option (area - yield insurance) and the presence of one of the savings options (group savings).

Risk and poverty are inextricably linked. Susceptibility to risk is a defining feature of what it means to be poor. Poor people often live in environments characterized by high weather and disease risk, and it is poor households that have the fewest tools to deal with drought, floods, and disease when they occur. Breaking the link between risk and poverty by insuring poor people both lessens the affliction of poverty and allows poor people to participate in income and growth.

This paper provides an overview of a research project that assessed the long-term impact of three antipoverty interventions in Bangladesh—the introduction of new agricultural technologies, educational transfers, and microfinance—on monetary and non monetary measures of well-being. This paper begins by setting out the conceptual framework, methodology, and empirical methods used for the evaluation of long-term impacts. It discusses the context of the evaluations and the longitudinal data used.

This paper investigates inclusive growth in agricultural value chains, with a focus on smallholder participation, upgrading behavior, and outcomes related to agricultural productivity, agricultural profits, and smallholder incomes. The purpose of the paper is to advance understanding of inclusive growth by reviewing empirical evidence from twelve agricultural value chains that have engaged and benefited smallholders. The review of evidence focuses on three central questions:

Production, Finance, and Improved Technologies (PROFIT) was a multi-sector value chain intervention in Zambia from 2005-2011. It focused on upgrading retail inputs and services and measuring the effect on beef and cotton value chains. Among the findings were:

- Shifts in approach, emphasis and location during the course of program complicated or invalidated parts of the research plan.

- The combination of quantitative and qualitative evidence presented suggests positive outcomes and impacts for smallholder participants in the project's beef and retail activities.

Producer penalties and bonuses can help reduce the incidence of side-selling and better align farmers' incentives with purchasers'. Bonuses can help ensure that farmers take the necessary measurements to produce the quality characteristics often present in contract farming arrangements. A randomized controlled experiment with milk producers in Vietnam showed that the presence of penalties and bonuses drove farmers to higher input use which resulted in higher quality milk.

The objective of this paper is to summarize available evidence on key questions for the Feed the Future Learning Agenda theme on expanded markets, value chains and increased investments, and document expert opinion on gaps in the scientific literature for this theme that are in most urgent need of attention.

Among the gaps identified are the lack of rigorous impact assessments of value chain interventions. Specifically "the vast majority of the data available measure outcomes that suggest reductions in poverty rather than quantify impacts on poverty."

This report presents the results of a review of 11 guides for value chain development (VCD). The review compares the  concepts and methods endorsed and assesses the strengths and limitations of the guides for steering development practice. Overall, the guides provide a useful framework for understanding markets and engaging with chain stakeholders, with a strong emphasis on strengthening institutions and achieving sustainability of interventions.

Weather variations crucially act the wellbeing of farmers in developing countries yet weather insurance is rather rare. I develop and estimate a dynamic stochastic optimization model to assess the impact of weather insurance on the consumption, investment, and welfare for farmers in developing countries. The parameters of the model are pinned down with a combination of calibration and structural estimation using data from Malawi.

Part of the constraints facing contract farming are the lack of proper procedures for measuring quality in production. If the buyer handles quality assurance then they may have an incentive to report that production was of lower quality in order to offer a lower price. The producer knowing this, in turn will lower their expectation to the income from contact farming and be less likely to contract.

Using both quantitative and qualitative research methods, the Gender, Agriculture, and Assets Project (GAAP) worked with CARE-Bangladesh to assess the impact of the Strengthening the Dairy Value Chain Project (SDVCP) on (1) women’s ownership of assets, men’s ownership of assets, and jointly held assets; (2) gender norms around asset ownership and control; (3) gender norms regarding decisionmaking in these areas surrounding the dairy value chain; and (4) trade-offs and time costs involved in project participation.

This report summarizes the experiences of the consulting firm J.E. Austin Associates in performing value chain analysis and interventions.

- Base project designs on good market analysis and direct them toward market opportunity.

- Conduct direct industry benchmarking to identify, design, and generate stakeholder buy-in.

- Leverage value chain analysis to empower stakeholders to participate in improving their sector competitiveness through sustainable interventions.

We analyze the effectiveness of a new approach in providing weather index-based insurance products to low-income populations. The approach is based on the concept of providing multiple weather securities that pay a fixed amount if the event written on the security (that monthly rainfall at a nearby weather station falls below a stated cutoff) comes true. A theoretical model is developed to outline the conditions in which weather securities could outperform crop-specific weather index-based insurance policies.

This article draws on four contrasting cases of value chain development (VCD) in Nicaragua to assess approaches and tools used in design and implementation. We interviewed 28 representatives from the international NGOs leading the interventions, the local NGOs that participated in implementation, principal buyers, and cooperatives.

The majority of the world’s poorest people live in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Most of these households engage in rural farming and subsist on incomes at or below the international extreme poverty line of US$1.90 per person per day (our working definition for the ‘extremely poor’). CARE, Save the Children, and World Vision are applying inclusive value chain development (VCD) among households living in extreme poverty in an effort to catalyse sustained food security.

Smallholder farmers in Zambia comprise 85 per cent of the farmers’ population. Such farmers are regarded as not creditworthy and furthermore their agricultural productivity could be improved. The aim of this paper is to present recent evidence on value chain financing (VCF) as a framework to increase access to agricultural finance for Zambian smallholder farmers. Such financing will act as an enabler to mechanize and, in turn, might improve productivity. Qualitative data collection techniques were followed to provide the results as presented in three illustrative case studies.

This study analyzes the Laiterie Du Berger (LDB)’s milk supply chain and its contribution to strengthening the food security and socioeconomic resources of Senegalese Sahelian pastoral households. Porter’s value chain model is used to characterize the innovations introduced by the LDB dairy in its milk inbound logistics and supplier relationships. A socioeconomic food security index and qualitative data are used to assess the dairy’s supply chain’s contribution to strengthen smallholder households’ livelihoods.

This paper analyses governance structures in Uganda’s smallholder pig value chains by applying the New Institutional Economics framework. It utilises cross sectional and qualitative survey data from randomly selected pig value chain actors in 4 districts. A multinomial logit model is applied to assess the determinants of vertical integration among pig traders. The findings indicate that most relationships at the pig production node of the value chain are based on spot market governance structures supported by personal relationships and trust.

Recent literature suggests that to make value chains in changing agrifood systems in sub-Saharan Africa more inclusive, intermediary institutions should foster coordination. The hub concept has been applied as such an intermediary institution that coordinates advisory services, input supply and smallholder access to markets.

The authors first discuss the value of value chains and how they can benefit from resilience. They follow this with a detailed analysis of the risks and resilience of different components of the value chain and conclude with a discussion of the business of resilience.  

Here is a list of key messages from this paper:

Facilitate the design and/or assessment of interventions for value chain development, taking into account the circumstances and needs of upstream-chain actors (namely, stallholder producing households and small and medium enterprises that have direct relations with smallholders). The tool has been tested in 20+ countries in S Asia, Africa, and LAC.

Accurately assessing risk is key to providing appropriately priced loans to rural producers. This paper examines non-parametric techniques for risk scoring to avoid the erroneous rejection of credit-worthy loan applicants. Both parametric and non-parametric techniques were tested against simulated data and then evaluated on microfinance loan applicants in Peru. Because non-parametric techniques impose fewer modeling assumptions, they are able to better predict default.

This toolkit details the proper questions to ask and best practices when designing surveys about intrahousehold asset allocation. It stresses the importance of gender for key development outcomes such as child nutrition and education. Finally it emphasizes the importance of quantitative and qualitative methods and the challenges and benefits associated with each.

This ILRI discussion paper reviews 20 value chain interventions and discusses the econometric techniques used to address the validity of findings. It explores the use of propensity score matching, instrumental variables, difference in difference, regression discontinuity, and randomized controlled trials. Qualitative and participatory methods are also examined with the idea that they may be able to better capture the complexity of value chain processes.

This article puts forward a method for the analysis of constraints faced by developing countries’ smallholder producers. It is consistent with theories of constraints, efficient in terms of cost and researchers’ time, and accessible to a non-technical audience. A hybrid of workshop discussion and individual data collection, it also draws on data and analyses available in most developing countries.

The second in a four-part series from CIAT of good practice guides for value chain development.

The aim of this guide is to provide a systematic means to (i) select and evaluate an area, (ii) establish an overall working group to support inter-institutional agroenterprise development, (iii) profile client groups to implement enterprises, and (iv) agree area plans for joint activities.

This guide is the third in a series from CIAT designed to support agencies implementing a participatory approach to rural agroenterprise development.

The aim of this guide is to provide a simple and systematic participatory method for gathering market information to identify products and services for agroenterprise development.

Women play a critical and potentially transformative role in agricultural growth in developing countries, but they face persistent obstacles and economic constraints limiting further inclusion in agriculture. The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) measures the empowerment, agency, and inclusion of women in the agriculture sector in an effort to identify ways to overcome those obstacles and constraints. The Index is a significant innovation in its field and aims to increase understanding of the connections between women’s empowerment, food security, and agricultural growth.

Reducing food loss and waste can contribute to food security and sustainability. Measuring food loss and waste, identifying where in the food system it occurs, and developing effective policies along the value chain are essential first steps toward addressing the problem. We need to set concrete targets at regional and country levels to reduce food loss and waste. For developed countries, the focus should be on waste; for developing countries, the focus in the short term should be on food loss, but also consider best practices for reducing waste in the longer term.

The USAID Feed the Future Initiative supports the development of agriculture as an engine of economic growth, food security, and poverty reduction. Key to the success of this initiative is the empowerment of women, who play a vital role in advancing agricultural development, food security, and nutritional outcomes. Much of Feed the Future’s agricultural programmatic support to rural women thus far has been concentrated at the production stage.

Wheat is one of the four most important food grains in Ethiopia. As a source of calories in the diet, wheat is second to maize.  In terms of the area of production, wheat is fourth, after teff, maize, and sorghum.  In terms of the value of production, it is 4th or 5th, after teff, enset, and maize, and approximately tied with sorghum. 

Wheat production has expanded rapidly in the past decade.  According to the CSA, wheat production has grown at 7.5% per year since 1995-96 and at 9.3% over the past decade.

USAID/Mozambique commissioned a value chain analysis (VCA) to prioritize and guide interventions within and across target value chains. The analysis targeted nine value chains, as summarized below: 

A Feed the Future (FTF) program is being planned for Sierra Leone, encompassing diversified, nutrition- sensitive agriculture. It will focus primarily on one district (Tonkolili or Bombali), to be identified per research and discussions with the Government of Sierra Leone (GoSL).

This article reviews 11 guides for value-chain analysis and development. It compares the guides’ concepts, objectives, and methods and identifies strengths, weaknesses, and gaps. The assessment characterizes the state of the art for designing interventions and interactions that seek to build value chains with smallholders. The article is organized as follows: the next section presents the methodology applied in carrying out the review, the following section presents the results of this review, and the final section provides concluding comments.

This article draws attention to the link between Value Chain Development and smallholder livelihood strategies that comprise a complex mix of subsistence and market-oriented activities and that are diversified to meet multiple livelihood goals and mitigate risks; and the authors address the related implications for the design and assessment of value-chain interventions. They question some of the underlying assumptions of NGOs, government agencies, and private-sector agents seeking to link smallholders to higher-value markets.

The women’s crop tool attempts to elicit women’s and men’s levels of control over important decision making (land allocation, land preparation, use of inputs, weeding, use of labor, harvesting, marketing, use of income) for their main crops. Both qualitative (FGDs) and quantitative (HH survey) measurements can be done to collect sex-disaggregated data on control. This can reveal both women’s and men’s perception of their own control and each other’s control.

Reducing food loss and waste are important policy objectives prominently featured in the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. To optimally design interventions targeted at reducing losses, it is important to know where losses are concentrated between the farm and fork. This paper measures farmlevel postharvest losses for three main crops—maize, soy, and groundnuts—among 1,200 households in Malawi.

The second Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) challenges the world to achieve food security and improve nutrition by 2030 but food insecurity and micronutrient deficiencies remain stubbornly high and rates of overweight and obesity are rising throughout the world. To attain SDG 2, food systems must deliver more nutritious food to populations. For food systems to do so, value chains for micronutrient-rich foods must be improved, making such foods more available and affordable to consumers.

A major challenge when designing a National Agricultural Investment Plan (NAIP) is deciding how to prioritize between different opportunities, e.g., which value-chains should be promoted over others?

Background

The SELEVER study is designed to evaluate the impact of an integrated agriculture–nutrition package of interventions (including poultry value chain development, women’s empowerment activities, and a behavior change communications strategy to promote improved diets and feeding, care, and hygiene practices) on the diets, health, and nutritional status of women and children in Burkina Faso. This paper presents the rationale and study design.

The purpose of this publication as a part of the FAO series on sustainable food value chain development is to facilitate the systematic integration of gender equality dimensions into value chain development programmes and projects. It raises awareness on gender inequalities and discusses the importance of addressing these dimensions in value chain development, while also building a common approach for work on gender-sensitive value chain development.

In an effort to better understand agriculture value chains market needs in relation to CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM) learning hubs, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) conducted a market needs study to assess the current situation and find any possible common ground between the East and southern Africa (ESA) PIM learning hub and the needs and expectations of key actors in the market.

Commercial layer and indigenous chicken farming in Nairobi and associated activities in the egg value chains are a source of livelihood for urban families. A value chain mapping framework was used to describe types of inputs and outputs from chicken farms, challenges faced by producers and their disease control strategies. Commercial layer farms were defined as farms keeping exotic breeds of chicken, whereas indigenous chicken farms kept different cross breeds of indigenous chicken.