Agricultural Development: New Perspectives in a Changing World is the first comprehensive exploration of key emerging issues facing developing-country agriculture today, from rapid urbanization to rural transformation to climate change. In this four-part volume, top experts offer the latest research in the field of agricultural development. Using new lenses to examine today’s biggest challenges, contributors address topics such as nutrition and health, gender and household decision-making, agrifood value chains, natural resource management, and political economy.
In this chapter, for brevity, we focus on the output value chains, but the conceptual framework and most trends are also relevant to the input value chains, the lateral service value chains, and R&D&E suppliers. Output value chains in developing countries have transformed over the past 50 years but particularly quickly only in the past 25 years. In many countries the transformation of value chains has been abrupt, not gradual.
Today, agrifood systems are undergoing remarkable changes, reflected in the modernization of food value chains and rural transformation responding to urbanization, income growth, and expansion of international trade. At the same time, agrifood systems are expected to contribute to a wide range of development goals, reaching beyond agricultural productivity growth and food security.
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.
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.
Photo credit: IFPRI
The COVID-19 pandemic is beginning to disrupt food value chains in Ethiopia and elsewhere, impacting the livelihoods of farmers and the diets of rural and urban households. These effects are likely to hit the poorest and most vulnerable farmers and consumers the hardest, but they are not yet well understood. More evidence is needed to guide the government and other organizations in devising responses.
The COVID-19 pandemic is beginning to disrupt food value chains in Ethiopia and elsewhere, impacting the livelihoods of farmers and the diets of rural and urban households. These effects are likely to hit the poorest and most vulnerable farmers and consumers the hardest, but they are not yet well understood. More evidence is needed to guide the government and other organizations in devising responses.
The majority of literature on aquaculture in Bangladesh focuses on “microsocioeconomics” and “value chains” (VCs) and tends to have a static perspective. However, this approach is at odds with several important emerging trends (Ali 1997; Ali, Haque, and Belton 2013). First, aquaculture is growing fast in Asia. From 1984 to 2014, Bangladesh’s farmed fish jumped from 124,000 metric tons to 1.96 million metric tons, increasing by 1,580 percent.
This chapter provides a brief overview of the key findings, lessons learnt, and policy implications from the presentations and discussions during the “National Seminar on Financing of Agriculture Value Chains: Challenges and Opportunities” organized jointly by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) at the Bankers Institute of Rural Development, Lucknow, during November 29–30, 2015.
The importance of cities is rapidly growing. It is estimated that more than half of the world population was living in cities in 2010; this is up from 30 percent in the 1950s (UN Population Division 2010). Given this rapid urbanization, especially so in developing countries, and the increasing importance of the manufacturing and service sectors in these countries’ economies, more people are making a living outside agriculture. As part of this change, many more people do not grow their own food and rely on market purchases for their food needs.
The purpose of this chapter is to understand the changes that have been happening in the teff value chain in Ethiopia based on carefully fielded primary stacked surveys at different layers in the value chain.1 This chapter uses the same data as in Chapter 11 and takes a dynamic angle on the teff sector, as was presented in Chapter 12. However, the scope of the analysis is much broader than in the previous market-focused chapter.
Despite global goals to decrease malnutrition, there remain many challenges in providing access to a nutritious diet for all. Food value chains for nutrition have been the focus of a number of reviews but evidence of their impacts remains limited. Using a systems perspective to look at markets and the role of the private sector in nutrition includes not only the complex relations between multiple actors and trade-offs between often competing objectives, but also the supporting environment in terms of infrastructure (e.g. roads, energy) and the guiding laws and social norms.
This volume has highlighted the important links between agriculture and nutrition, both direct and indirect, both theoretical and practical. It has explored these relationships through various frameworks, such as value chains, programs and policies, as well as through diverse perspectives, such as gender.
This chapter summarizes key findings from recent reviews of evidence of the nutritional impacts of agricultural programs. It focuses on findings from impact evaluations of different types of nutrition-sensitive agricultural programs, including biofortification, homestead food production systems, livestock transfer programs, value chains for nutritious foods, and irrigation programs. The review also includes, where available, information regarding pathways of impacts, mechanisms, and contextual factors that affect where and how agriculture may improve nutrition outcomes.
This chapter examines and compares four important but different types of value chains in Ghana: two export crops—cocoa and pineapples, and two import-substitution crops—rice and tomatoes. Apart from cocoa, these crops have under-exploited opportunities, and we examine the opportunities and constraints along their value chains, and the roles that the public sector has or might need to play. This leads to some more general conclusions about the best ways to develop these and related agricultural value chains in Ghana.
This chapter uses a statistical approach to explore African agricultural competitiveness. We illustrate competitiveness through all three means mentioned above: microeconomic drivers, macroeconomic drivers, and impact. We discuss the evolution of Africa’s competitiveness, comparing the competitiveness of Africa’s regional economic communities (RECs) with the world and among each other. We also analyze the competitiveness of value chains by commodity for the commodity value chains that are most significant for Africa’s trade.
- 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.
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.
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.
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.
Helps actors understand the current functioning of the market chain and key business models, design innovations that empower producer groups to engage more effectively and buyers to act in ways more amenable to smallholder farmers.
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.
This handbook prepared by the International Finance Corporation presents the benefits and challenges of sourcing from smallholder farmers.
This handbook helps practitioners become familiar with how to analyze and strategies to address gender issues in agricultural value chains.
This resource from the World Bank provides research, analysis and case studies to the use of ICT's in agriculture in developing countries.
The e-Sourcebook is provided fully and freely on this website. Fifteen modules touch on a wide spectrum of sub-fields in agriculture, including risk management, gender, forest governance, and farmers organizations. The Introduction (Module 1) introduces users to the ‘ICT in agriculture’ topic, offering key themes throughout the sourcebook as well as more details on how to use it.
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.
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.
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