The African Indigenous Vegetables Value Chain Governance in Kenya

Increasingly, food security interventions in developing economies are adapting value chain approaches to facilitate the integration of smallholders into high margin value chains. In Kenya, the resurgence of African Indigenous Vegetables due to their medicinal value and rich micronutrients is a case in point. The vegetables are cultivated by smallholders, and the supply has not matched the demand in the high margin markets among urban consumers. Access to such high margin markets necessitates that smallholders gain entry or upgrade into the networks of those buyers who possess considerable control of these value chains. There is limited value chain scholarship on chain governance and its implication for smallholder participation in Kenya. This study investigated how value chain governance influences farmer participation in vegetable markets and food security in Kenya. This study employed exploratory case study design to provide chain architecture, isolate primary actors, their roles, relations, constraints and opportunities for upgrading by smallholders. A mixed method approach involving a multistage sampling technique of 339 respondents was employed to bring to the surface insights on chain architecture, market margins and governance structures and their implications as regards upgrading trajectories for small-scale farmers in Kenya. Thematic analysis was used for data analysis. Spot market relations were found to dominate traditional value chains in rural areas while peri-urban areas exhibited both traditional and coordinated value chains. The value chains are characterised by very weak linkages between upstream actors and downstream partners, where wholesalers and supermarkets play the role of leading firms in traditional and coordinated value chains, respectively. The study recommends the inclusion of famers in market management committees and the establishment of binding contractual arrangements with supermarkets

Book Review: Building Peace in West Africa: Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea-Bissau by Adekeye Adebajo

No Abstract Available Afr. j. polit. sci. Vol.9(1) 2004: 137-13

The African Indigenous Vegetables Value Chain Governance in Kenya

Increasingly, food security interventions in developing economies are adapting value chain approaches to facilitate the integration of smallholders into high margin value chains. In Kenya, the resurgence of African Indigenous Vegetables due to their medicinal value and rich micronutrients is a case in point. The vegetables are cultivated by smallholders, and the supply has not matched the demand in the high margin markets among urban consumers. Access to such high margin markets necessitates that smallholders gain entry or upgrade into the networks of those buyers who possess considerable control of these value chains. There is limited value chain scholarship on chain governance and its implication for smallholder participation in Kenya. This study investigated how value chain governance influences farmer participation in vegetable markets and food security in Kenya. This study employed exploratory case study design to provide chain architecture, isolate primary actors, their roles, relations, constraints and opportunities for upgrading by smallholders. A mixed method approach involving a multistage sampling technique of 339 respondents was employed to bring to the surface insights on chain architecture, market margins and governance structures and their implications as regards upgrading trajectories for small-scale farmers in Kenya. Thematic analysis was used for data analysis. Spot market relations were found to dominate traditional value chains in rural areas while peri-urban areas exhibited both traditional and coordinated value chains. The value chains are characterised by very weak linkages between upstream actors and downstream partners, where wholesalers and supermarkets play the role of leading firms in traditional and coordinated value chains, respectively. The study recommends the inclusion of famers in market management committees and the establishment of binding contractual arrangements with supermarkets

Strategies against poverty : designs from the North and alternatives from the South

This book presents the contributions of African and Latin American experts on economic development to the seminar Strategies against poverty: Designs from the North and Alternatives from the South organized by the Conferencia Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, CLACSO, the Comparative Research Programme on Poverty, CROP and the South- South Exchange Programme for Research on the History of development, SEPHIS. The purpose of the seminar was to open space for debate, from a historical perspective, alternative theoretical approaches on the causes of poverty and to explore the, sometimes diverging, strategies to its eradication as proposed by the North, donors and multilateral organizations, and by the South, governments and non-governmental organizations. The particular interest in studying poverty in the context of developing countries, often called the South, is to show the profound socio-economic inequalities existing in these countries and the problems that result when the programs structured to mitigate poverty are, in too many cases, a mere incorporation to local scenarios of the universal policies, from international and funding agencies. These programs made with the idea that one size fits all, ignore the needs, priorities and realities of individual countries and regions and only meet the North´s neoliberal paradigms. There is no need to stress the relevance of comparative analysis of the effects of colonial and neo-colonial powers to understand the factors constraining economic growth in developing countries. The works presented in this volume constitute one step in the direction of finding both, similar problems and akin solutions and to envision policies that respond to local and national history, conditions and priorities.Introduction. Looking Proper Answers in African, Latin American and Caribbean Countries / Samwel Ongwen Okuro and Alicia Puyana Mutis. First Part: Theoretical Alternatives for a Comprehensive Analysis of Anti-Poverty Strategies. 1.1. Neoliberal and Neo-Colonial Governmentality: Social Policies and Strategies against Poverty from the North and Alternatives from the South The Case of South America and the Caribbean / Sonia Álvarez Leguizamón. 1.2. Public Investment for Economic Development and Poverty Reduction: Theoretical and Empirical analysis / Cristina Fróes de Borja Reis. 1.3. Economic Growth, Employment and Poverty Reduction: A Comparative Analysis of Chile and Mexico with References to Argentina, Brazil and Colombia / Alicia Puyana Mutis. Second Part: Poverty Diagnosis from the South. 2.1. Social Policy in the Neoliberal Order: Conditional Cash Transfer Programmes as Mechanisms of political Legitimacy in Latin America / Andrés García Trujillo. 2.2. Ownership Question and Poverty Reduction Strategy in Nigeria: What Has Gone Wrong? / Eugene Ndubuisi Nweke. Third Part: Proposals to Alternative Policy Designs for Poverty Eradication. 3.1. Structural Adjustment and the Neglect of Intergenerational Poverty in the Caribbean / Dennis A. V. Brown. 3.2. Poverty Reduction in Ghana: Alternative Solutions by the State / John Gasu. 3.3. Fighting the Poverty War: Non-Governmental Organisations and the Challenge of Poverty eradication in Nigeria / Akinpelu O. Olutayo & Olayinka Akanle. 3.4. Rethinking World Bank Driven Land Tenure Reforms in Kenya / Samwel Ongwen Okuro. 3.5. The Macroeconomic Limits of Incomes Policy in a Dependent Country: The Need and Possibilities for Radical Reforms in Social Policies in Argentina after the Crisis (2001-2008)/ Mariano Féliz. 3.6. State Failure, Poverty and Productive Structure / Erik S. Reinert, Rainer Kattel and Yves Ekoué Amaïzo