Most farming endeavors in Sub-Saharan Africa are subsistent and characterized by a convoluted mix that largely features traditional methods, with scant adoption of modern techniques. These farming practices face a myriad of constraints, which could be overcome by implementing novel farming procedures and innovations.
The majority of Africa’s smallholder production is dependent on rainfall as the sole source of crop moisture. However, the increasing unpredictability and variability of rainfall patterns—driven by the effects of climate change—have heightened farmers’ exposure to risk and led to widespread yield losses. As a result, many farmers have suffered significant losses due to delays in the onset of rains, inconsistent soil moisture during the crop growth cycle, prolonged droughts, and excessive flooding.
Moreover, as is archetypal among many smallholder farmers (SHFs), production is concentrated on small, fragmented plots of land. These challenges, compounded by the use of low-input, low-technology farming practices, mean that the gains from SHFs’ efforts rarely suffice to meet household needs, leaving little to no surplus for income generation or for improving their overall livelihoods.
Despite these challenges, smallholder farmers demonstrate remarkable resilience and adaptability. Changemakers can leverage the value chain thinking approach by integrating farmers’ indigenous knowledge and practices with market-focused strategies to build a robust agribusiness ecosystem that empowers SHFs to make informed decisions regarding crops to grow and how to sell for increased profitability and sustainability. Value chain thinking approaches enable farmers to co-create and operationalize broader farm-to-fork agribusiness models systematically, starting from seed sourcing to consumer demand and preference. This goes a long way in transforming smallholder farming from a survival activity to a sustainable income-generating business.
What is the Value Chain Thinking Approach?
The value chain thinking (VCT) approach empowers SHFs to grow and sell crops that fetch a premium price, emphasizing quality and skill. Value Chain Thinking enhances the farmers’ capacity to build and maintain their independence.
By adopting the VCT approaches, NGOs in the agricultural space can integrate the concepts of markets and profitability within their intervention components. Many local farmers count on brokers as their primary channel to markets, who buy at exploitative rather than competitive prices. This is usually down to the farmers’ desperation, as they would rather opt for the little they are offered than risk losing product in storage. NGOs can counter this by identifying direct and sustainable market opportunities such as supermarkets, hotels, and schools. This way, farmers can bypass brokers and local markets where they are faced with oversupply and price fluctuations to better and more consistently pay terms.
Organizations can also realistically assess the capacity of the farmers and what they can deliver. They can create detailed profiles, capturing data for ideal crop varieties, organic practices, water needs, and storage and transport requirements. Thereafter, they can use the data to identify the best opportunities by matching the capabilities of the farmer to the market needs. Furthermore, by adopting targeted farming, rather than depending on brokers, farmers can directly engage potential buyers themselves and discuss price, quality checks, logistics, and terms of payment.
Considering VCT approaches in intervention implementation will also help farmers take a leading role in making decisions rather than having organizations make them on their behalf. For instance, after researching crop viability, farmers can be guided in analyzing the risk and returns for the different options before eventually selecting the preferred option. Moreover, organizations can help farmers develop plans for production, harvesting, and market preparation. This helps farmers prepare in advance and account for any unexpected circumstances that would otherwise find them ill-prepared.
In conclusion, local development partners in the food security space should consider retooling their workforce into value chain facilitators, promoting conventional extension techniques. This transformation will remodel food security /agricultural productivity intervention, focusing on the farmer’s income and market size as the primary performance metrics rather than yield output. However, change will take time and will require collaborative efforts with market-familiar organizations as well as test rollouts in the form of pilot programs.
Furthermore, while emphasis should be placed on market-oriented production, it should be keen to avoid overproduction that ultimately affects prices. Also, giving farmers the power to make their decisions should be pragmatic, sustainable, and guided by realistic expectations. There should be no attempts whatsoever to transform entire communities in a single swoop. Organizations should rather initiate small test projects and gather evidence to be implemented in future decisions prior to expanding the scope.