A Consideration of Agricultural Value Chains, and Their Relevance to Africa

What is an agricultural value chain?

“The focus should be on the full value chain – from farm to fork, not just production”¹. Claudius Kurtna, a fish farmer from Kenya, highlights in simple terms a concept that is hard to delineate in the literature. While there is no universal definition of the ‘agricultural value chain’, I will be operating under the FAO’s characterisation of the value chain as identifying the set of actors and activities that bring a basic product from production to final consumption². At each stage, or link of the chain, value is added to the product: through processing, packaging, storage, transport, distribution and marketing. While value chain models are inherently market-based, they have emerged alongside the realisation that economic liberalisation in the 1980s and 1990s, accompanied by state withdrawal from agriculture, has not translated into significant poverty reduction². This newer discourse focuses on food security and sustainability, and has been compounded by the global food price crisis in 2007-08, and the threat of climate change. Producers, particularly small-scale and of staple crops, are now seen as central players^2,3.

In my opinion, applying a value chain model to food production in Africa is beneficial for several reasons. Firstly, it is inherently bottom-up, as it begins with the producer, and inclusive. It also clearly identifies current barriers to food security in Africa; considering the ‘chain’ as a whole allows us to see the challenges at each stage, which promotes holistic and sustainable improvements. Finally, as it is couched in the realm of business and markets, it promotes efficiency and adaptability. This not only applies to the industrial processes of production and distribution, but also to the inputs into the chain, of which water is one. Therefore, this body of this post will be divided into two parts: the first part will aim to illustrate the points above by discussing food storage as a stage in the chain that has challenges and opportunities specific to Africa; the second will broadly and briefly consider the role of water in the value chain.

           

Storage: hidden barrier?

Often highlighted in literature on African agriculture is the need to invest in infrastructure, however this largely focuses on roads, electricity and telecommunications. I only considered the necessity of storage for farming when I heard Dr Annie Kinwa-Muzinga discuss women and agriculture on an episode of the radio show Congo Live⁴. Without storage there is waste: according the FAO, a third of all food produced in sub-Saharan Africa is lost before it reaches the market⁶. This is due to storage that is contaminated, infested with pests, or of inadequate capacity. Poor quality storage at the transport stage means that produce, particularly staple crops like grain and oilseed, simply spills from the back of dilapidated trucks⁷. Another challenge is ‘forced commerce’: poor smallholders have to sell almost all of their crops at harvest time for low prices, because they are unable to store them⁵. Without investment into the infrastructure that links each stage of the value chain, the benefits of market involvement will not be evenly distributed. Private traders will benefit form these low prices, and poor smallholders will be left without^5.

Beyond the necessity of storage to sustain the farmer, it can be considered as an opportunity to add value to produce directly from farms. Kurtna, the aforementioned Kenyan fish farmer, makes high-protein, high-energy biscuits out of his harvest¹. These have a long shelf life, thus can be stored far longer and with greater ease than fresh fish, and target new consumers; for example schools have already ordered the biscuits. In a similar vein is an example given by Dr Kinwa-Muzinga of a female farming cooperative in Ghana that salt or smoke the fish they catch⁴. This preserves it for longer, and makes the product more desirable and worthy of a higher price.

These examples highlight the role of agriculture beyond just food production. It is a business and an agent of positive societal change, in areas like gender equality, malnutrition and education. Catching fresh fish does not improve child education in Africa, but creating nutritious and long-lasting fish biscuits that are sold to schools might be able to. In my opinion, the value chain model reflects and encourages these connections; between different smallholders and farmers, with new consumers, and between small-scale producers and markets at different levels, from local packaging factories to global trade. We need to consider agriculture beyond the initial product.

Water as a production input, and some general conclusions

The relationship between food and water is inescapable: “no other supply chain needs or consumes a natural resource in the [same] proportions”⁸. Water is necessary at almost every stage of the agricultural value chain: to irrigate land and process produce, in packaging factories, transport and refrigeration³. Professor Tony Allan asserts that about 90% of the water needed by an individual or national economy is embedded in their food consumption, as ‘green water’, ‘food water’ or ‘virtual water’. To me, a recent entrant into this academic world, it seems obvious that viewing water as a production input into the agricultural value chain necessitates efficient and sustainable use; it is a resource with extraction costs, and it has a monetary worth that should be accounted for. However, throughout history water has been largely ignored as an economic input, due to an assumption that it is ‘free’ by producers and an overwhelming push for cheap food by consumers and governments⁸.

For these reasons, Allan calls for a paradigm change around water use. If the majority of water is used to produce food, then the natural managers of water are not hydrologists and governments, but farmers. Yet, farmers have not been provided with the necessary resources to both sustain a secure livelihood and “[steward] the water ecosystems on which society itself depends”⁸.

To me, the perspective of agricultural value chains clearly highlights where there needs to be investment to support African farmers. There is infrastructure at every link of the chain that needs to be improved to make agriculture a successful business. Furthermore, infrastructure must come before intensification; any kind of ‘Green Revolution for Africa’ will be futile and damaging if there is nowhere to store the surplus grain. While the agricultural value chain is just a concept, and a complex one at that, it provides an alternative way of looking at food and water in Africa that has the possibility of being profit-oriented and sustainable, with a role for farmers, private corporations and state regulation in turn.

References

¹ BBC Africa. 2011. Why young Africans are swapping the office for the farm. Accessed 15/11/16 from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-36914887

² Elbehri A & Lee M. 2011. The role of women producer organizations in agricultural value chains: lessons from Africa & India. FAO: Rome.

³ Besada H & Werner K. 2015. An assessment of the effects of Africa’s water crisis on food security and management. Int J Wat Res Dev. 31(1): 120-33.

⁴ Congo Live, 2015. Gender issues in agriculture in DRC and across Africa. Accessed 10/11/16 from: https://www.mixcloud.com/congolive2/gender-issues-in-agriculture-in-drc-and-across-africa-dr-annie-kinwa-muzinga/

⁵ Havnevik K, Bryceson D, Birgegård LE, Matondi P & Beyene A. 2007. African Agriculture and the World Bank: Development or Impoverishment? Nordic Africa Insitute: Uppsala.

FAO. 2011. Global food losses and food waste – Extent, causes and prevention. FAO: Rome.

⁶ Wildeboer E & Bosch P. 2015. Why we must invest in local food storage in sub-Saharan Africa. Guardian sustainable business. Acessed 20/11/16 from: https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/jan/15/invest-local-food-storage-sub-saharan-africa

⁷ Allan JA. 2015. Water and Food Security: Food-water and Food Supply Value Chains. In Antonelli M & Greco F (eds.), The Water We Eat, Springer Water: Switzerland.