Hello everyone,

Family farming on the edge

Value chains

I’ve recently been looking at value chains for selected crops/livestock in East Africa. Me and may hundreds of others, of course, for ‘value chains’ are the current flavour of the month that – if nothing else – helps to better understand the interdependency of all the people involved between farm and consumer: traders, transporters processors, service agents, public services and more, in addition to that original smallholder producer. Getting people in the value chain to appreciate the value of the modeling involved, however, is challenging.

Family farming?

What can be said that’s not already been said? Sure there’s a role for the family – irrespective of scale – but for the majority of contributors this is likely to mean ‘small-scale’ and, in context, small-scale usually means limited resources, inadequate education, inability to take risk and more. This is peasant farming in all but name and the challenge then becomes shifting him (but more importantly shifting ‘her and her family’) out of that cycle of inadequacy, poverty and more. That’s why the youngsters are leaving the land - they see no future there.

So, my contribution to the debate is to explore the over-view; the reality of national planning that is belatedly focusing upon ‘agriculture’ as a source of wealth and, equally, trying to encourage people to remain where they are and to work with what they have available. City life, of course, beckons the young, mobile and, for best, educated. Here it is that issues of markets and time become relevant.

Meeting market demand

First this thing about markets. With a 4 000 m2 garden, the typical East African family growing food crops to feed the family barely survives. Where is the space to grow commercial crops? How to shift from one to the other? Where is that measure of financial/food insurance that will enable the family to take risk? As a single grower the family has few options. Join a mutually-supportive producers group, however, and opportunities may arise - this means a joining a commercial producer group. The reality is one where the many hundreds of thousands of smallholder producers can be linked into a large-scale processor who has the capabilities to exploit markets (for the products and standards required).

East Africa, for example, imports >4,000 tonnes frozen ‘French fries’ (‘chips’ in Anglo-English) annually at a cost of around half million US dollars. They cost almost eight times per kilo the equivalent of the local product, but issues of traceability and demand enable them to find ready markets – with costs, of course, passed on to the consumer. The quantities are insignificant when compared to market demand - >220,000 tonnes (and growing) - but not the costs.

And not just processed foods, but staples too. The most popular staple in East Africa is maize with annual production around 12 million tonnes augmented with imports of >500 000 tonnes to make up for deficiencies of supply. Imports cost >USD 183 million. South Africa provides the bulk of maize imports (as it does throughout much of SSA). This country produces maize at half the cost of that produced in the East African countries – it a more efficient producer.

Further, small-scale production and lack of infrastructure results in post-harvest crop losses of the order 40% for maize in East Africa. And it doesn’t stop there for neither is the productivity of domestic producers improving – yields remain largely static across the region from year to year.

That small-scale agricultural wealth equation simply doesn’t add up. But then it can do. Check out the success story of the Ugandan farmer growing passionfruit on a small block of land near Fort Portal. Nothing succeeds like success; and these are people to be watched and followed. More at: http://www.newvision.co.ug/news/652399-kaduru-earns-millions-from-passion-fruits.html.

Also check out the opportunities that arise from shared investment by development partners, government and the private sector. More than 50 000 smallholder growers on either side of the Kenya/Uganda border are producing exotic horticultural fruits for processing within networks that are supported by leading agro-processing companies. More at: http://www.technoserve.org/files/downloads/project-nurture-partnering-for-business-opportunity-and-development-impact.pdf

A couple of examples doesn’t set the arguments in concrete, but the messages are clear – you need scale and investment to compete with the best of the imports; and this is not the case with the majority smallholders. They need collectivization, organization, producer groups and access to investment funds at reasonable cost if they to remain in business; to prosper means reaching another level.

Secondly there is this issue of time

The number of people in Africa continues to increase and, with current 2-3 percent growth rates, the continental population will be estimated two billion by 2050 of which >700 million will be East Africans. Even by 2020 the population of East Africa will be estimated 240 million (50% more than today). The East African regional population will dominate the continent and represent the third largest worldwide (after South Asia and East Asia) according to UNICEF*.

The changing dynamics of climate on food production in Africa are also likely to have an increasing impact on the security of food supplies into the middle- and long-term, and particularly for people who are already food insecure**. It is a paradox of unmitigated proportion that in a continent that has ample fertile lands, large resources of surface and subterranean water and a relatively benign climate in which all kinds of crops can be grown, that insufficient food is available for estimated 40 percent of the people.

Much the same applies to the countries of East Africa, notwithstanding significant socio-economic advantages of education, language, infrastructure, agricultural potential, abundant national resources and relative political stability. And when sufficient food is produced, large numbers of people – usually the most vulnerable: women and rural poor - cannot afford to purchase it.

The unpredictability of climate change and the erratic nature of weather patterns that result will impact upon crops that depend upon seasonal rains. Desertification already affects the extent of grazing lands in the north of the region, but all croplands everywhere are expected to receive less rainfall further increasing the incident of droughts. Rising temperatures will impact upon key staple food crops, with decline in yields projected 5-20 percent.

So time is short with the challenge of feeding ever greater numbers of people from much the same resources. And we’ve not even made mention of changing dietary demands.

What to do about it

First the socio-economic options include:

  1. Focus upon the resilience of smallholder family producers – boosting land productivity.
  2. Focus upon marginalized people: provide access to economic assets, rights and decision-making.
  3. Educate people – about what to produce and what to eat.
  4. Provide safety nets: crop insurance, food-for-work-programmes (for environmental care, etc.).

Then provide the public-private partnerships that will shift national rhetoric and planning into action by:

  1. Introducing fair and transparent government in which everyone can make a contribution.
  2. Getting serious about climate change and those essential mitigation programmes.
  3. Mobilize populations.
  4. Industrialize agriculture.
  5. Provide access to funds and appropriate financing mechanisms.

Mvua mzuri, mazao mzuri na chakula mzuri sana.

Peter Steele

Agricultural Engineer

Rome

06 October 2014

*http://www.unicef.org/publications/index_74751.html (Generation 2030 Africa)

** http://hdr.undp.org/en/2013-report (Human Development Report 2013)