Small and Medium Enterprises in the Agriculture Value Chain: Opportunities and Recommendations

Authored in collaboration with Oxfam, this report analyzes the effectiveness of development programs in addressing the effectiveness of SME agricultural value chains, and dissect whether these interventions would be Social Enterprises (SEs) in agriculture in Asia. The paper makes recommendations for donors and development agencies that seek to support SEs in agriculture

Designing sustainable cold chains for long-range food distribution: Energy-effective corridors on the Silk Road Belt

Modern food production-distribution processes represent a critical stressor for the environment and for natural ecosystems. The rising flows of food across growing and consumption areas couple with the higher expectations of consumers for the quality of products and compel the intensive use of refrigerated rooms and transport means throughout the food supply chain. In order to aid the design of sustainable cold chains that incorporate such aspects, this paper proposes a mixed integer linear programming model to minimize the total energy consumption associated with the cold operations experienced by perishable products. This model is intended for food traders, logistics practitioners, retail managers, and importers collaboratively called to design and plan a cost and environmentally effective supply strategy, physical channels, and infrastructures for cold chains. The proposed model is validated with a case study inspired by the distribution of two example food products, namely fresh apples and ice cream, along the New Silk Road connecting Europe and China. The illustrated analysis investigates the effect of alternative routes and transport modes on the sustainability of the cold chain. It is found that the most energy-efficient route for ice cream is via rail over a northern route and, for apples, is via a southern maritime route, and, for these two routes, the ratios of the total energy consumed to the energy content of the food are 760 and 913, respectively. By incorporating the energy lost due to the food quality decay, the model identifies the optimal route to adopt in accordance with the shelf life and the conservation temperature of each product

Indonesia Sustainable Fisheries Value Chain Assessments

Wilderness Markets, with the support of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, undertook a series of fishery value chain assessments to better understand the opportunities and constraints for private impact capital to flow into wild-capture fisheries markets in Indonesia. Building on extensive impact-focused investment experience in agricultural value chains, the objectives were to:*  Identify and categorize potential impact investment opportunities in wild-capture fisheries utilizing a combination of impact investment frameworks.*  In the absence of impact investment opportunities, document value chain constraints preventing such opportunities.*  Support the creation of sustainable wild-capture fisheries investment strategies by identifying appropriate frameworks for the assessment and development of intervention opportunities.Wilderness Markets assessed four developing country fisheries (DCFs) in two countries, with a particular focus on Indonesia, plus one fishery in California, US, for comparison. This document focuses on Indonesia and summarises our assessment of the blue swimming crab, snapper, yellowfin and skipjack tuna seafood value chains. Each fishery assessed provided a piece of a larger puzzle, allowing Wilderness Markets to identify the components of a sustainable seafood value chain and its relationship to stock health which, in turn, drives value chain health.This document provides a summary of the findings in Indonesia

The Digitalisation of African Agriculture Report 2018-2019

An inclusive, digitally-enabled agricultural transformation could help achieve meaningful livelihood improvements for Africa’s smallholder farmers and pastoralists. It could drive greater engagement in agriculture from women and youth and create employment opportunities along the value chain. At CTA we staked a claim on this power of digitalisation to more systematically transform agriculture early on. Digitalisation, focusing on not individual ICTs but the application of these technologies to entire value chains, is a theme that cuts across all of our work. In youth entrepreneurship, we are fostering a new breed of young ICT ‘agripreneurs’. In climate-smart agriculture multiple projects provide information that can help towards building resilience for smallholder farmers. And in women empowerment we are supporting digital platforms to drive greater inclusion for women entrepreneurs in agricultural value chains

Sustainable Fisheries Financing Strategies: Save the Oceans Feed the World Project

This paper attempts to evaluate the factors that affect the financial viability of sustainable seafood investments, and in doing so: a) examines the underlying industry dynamics, opportunities, and risks associated with investing in the seafood sector; b) summarizes lessons learned from existing approaches to sustainable fisheries investments; and c) describes in greater detail the three aforementioned impact-investing mechanisms that could support the development of more sustainable wild-capture fisheries. The design of these strategies reflects, to the best of our understanding, the unique characteristics of the countries studied. We recognize that these strategies will evolve through further research and development and will vary meaningfully in their design and execution depending on the specific characteristics of the fisheries and countries where they may be deployed. We hope that these strategies can be adopted, modified and executed by a range of public, private, and non-profit players over time, and that the execution of these or similar strategies will catalyze the flow of new sources of private capital towards sustainable fisheries with positive environmental and societal impacts

The Joint Impact of Supply Chain Integration and Quality Management on the Performance of Pork Processing Firms in China

It is widely acknowledged that competition is no longer between individual firms, but between supply chains. A number of studies have indicated that supply chain integration and quality management have become essential to obtain competitive advantage. The present study tests the relationships among supply chain integration, quality management practices and firm performance in 229 Chinese pork slaughterhouses and processors using structural equation modeling. The most important results are that quality management is positively linked with firm performance. As managers put it "Quality is the life of the enterprise". Pork processing managers that wish to improve their performance are therefore advised to invest in quality management. Equally interesting is the indirect link of supply chain integration through quality management with firm performance. To improve quality of their products and reduce uncertainty in hog supply chains, companies are advised to develop more integrated relationships with their suppliers. However, in contrast to earlier studies, the direct link of supply chain integration and firm performance was not significant. This result may indicate that the Chinese pork processing industry is still in an early stage of SC integration.Supply chain management, quality management practices, pork supply chains, firm performance, China, Agribusiness, Livestock Production/Industries,

A Roadmap to Reduce U.S. Food Waste by 20 Percent

The magnitude of the food waste problem is difficult to comprehend. The U.S. spends $218 billion a year -- 1.3% of GDP -- growing, processing, transporting, and disposing of food that is never eaten. The causes of food waste are diverse, ranging from crops that never get harvested, to food left on overfilled plates, to near-expired milk and stale bread. ReFED is a coalition of over 30 business, nonprofit, foundation, and government leaders committed to building a different future, where food waste prevention, recovery, and recycling are recognized as an untapped opportunity to create jobs, alleviate hunger, and protect the environment -- all while stimulating a new multi-billion dollar market opportunity. ReFED developed A Roadmap to Reduce U.S. Food Waste as a data-driven guide to collectively take action to reduce food waste at scale nationwide.This Roadmap report is a guide and a call to action for us to work together to solve this problem. Businesses can save money for themselves and their customers. Policymakers can unleash a new wave of local job creation. Foundations can take a major step in addressing environmental issues and hunger. And innovators across all sectors can launch new products, services, and business models. There will be no losers, only winners, as food finds its way to its highest and best use

The Rapid Rise of Supermarkets in Developing Countries: Induced Organizational, Institutional, and Technological Change in Agrifood Systems

There has been extremely rapid transformation of the food retail sector in developing regions in the past 5 to 10 years, accompanied by a further consolidation and multi-nationalization of the supermarket sector itself. This organizational change, accompanied by intense competition, has driven changes in the organization of procurement systems of supermarket chains, toward centralized and regionalized systems, use of specialized/dedicated wholesalers and preferred supplier systems, and demanding, private quality standards. These changes in the system have in turn determined the very recent rise of the use of contracts between supermarkets and agrifood producers in these regions to cover provision of services and provision for risk management, as well as requirements for demanding quality and safety attributes, which require substantial investment in technological change and upgrading at the producer level. This paper presents a brief discussion of these trends, followed by a conceptual framework to explain this phenomenon, illustrated with empirical evidence drawn mainly from Latin America.supermarket chains, procurement systems, quality standards, agrifood producers, Agribusiness,