00:00:00: Welcome to a new episode of shaping sustainable Supply chains a podcast where we look at Supply chains worldwide and provide evidence-based Solutions on how to make them more sustainable I'm Nicholas Martin thank you for listening.

00:00:15: Music.

00:00:26: And the last two episodes we looked at models and policy Frameworks for Supply chains going forward we will dive into different Supply chains in different regions today we look at food supply chains in Africa.

00:00:40: Food plays like everywhere else on this planet a big role on the African continent partly because it still scares in many places and hunger is still the biggest health risk in Africa but.

00:00:52: Also because the middle class is growing rapidly and people are eating more and more Diversified so it's not only yams cassava or mangoes but also the demand for processed food products is growing.

00:01:06: My guest today is dr. Savita only paid a Liverpool Tessier

00:01:11: from the Michigan State University and the us there she is an associate professor at the department of agricultural food and resource economics

00:01:21: and an expert on development policies thank you for joining us today Sarita thanks Nicholas it's great to be here

00:01:27: you told me in our conversation earlier that your research reveals five common misconceptions when it comes to food supply chains in Africa

00:01:40: you have analyzed the food supply chains and several countries and you say development thinkers and planners need to

00:01:47: we think much of the conventional wisdom before we go into details Aveda

00:01:53: why is this topic of food supply chains actually so important to you I mean when you think about food supply chains as you mentioned they are critical because they are the mechanism.

00:02:04: Through which food is produced.

00:02:06: And distributed to millions of people to everyone basically and if you think about them in sub-Saharan Africa where my research is focused.

00:02:15: Then the transformation of Food Systems in terms of consumption patterns has led to a supply response along this food supply chains

00:02:23: which have significant implications

00:02:25: for the availability affordability and quality of food but is also a major source of employment in terms of all the nodes along the food supply chain for millions and billions of people

00:02:38: what do you mean when you talk about food supply chains can you give us a concrete example maybe with a real product

00:02:45: first of all when I say food system I'm thinking of multiple interconnected

00:02:50: food supply chains right and then if I think of a particular food supply chain I'm thinking of vertical and then lateral Supply chains so let me give an example.

00:02:59: If we think about the poultry value chain for example you have Upstream of the food supply chain the farmers the poultry farmers and then we have what we call the midstream.

00:03:09: Right which is those who are processing the poultry products and then you have the downstream which are those who are engaged in.

00:03:17: The sale of the product and the consumption of the product and then you have the lateral Supply chains

00:03:23: which are all the supply chains things like labor Logistics that feed into each node

00:03:29: of the vertical supply chain and we will look at the African continent now

00:03:34: and you say there is Major misconceptions on several things first of all you're talking about the role of food imports

00:03:42: you even mentioned that these misconceptions are so deeply rooted that even some of your students from from Africa believe them what is it all about.

00:03:52: Okay so thank you for that question Nicolas so indeed there is a widely held belief.

00:03:59: That Imports are Central to national food security across Africa and so the literature often notes that Africa is a net Food importer.

00:04:08: And that Africa's food sector development has been held back by large food imports.

00:04:14: And this view is you know really quite widely head and yes you are right that.

00:04:20: But I've asked the question you know what share of total food consumed in sub-Saharan Africa or sometimes I ask about the specific African country is imported.

00:04:29: And I've asked this question in various Avenues including my graduate development econ class at MSU.

00:04:35: And people generally provide figures consistent with this misconception forty fifty sixty percent.

00:04:41: But now just a quick reality check right so yes many African countries import significant amounts of particular commodities.

00:04:50: But actually Imports are a minor share.

00:04:54: Of total food consumption and domestic value chains are by far the dominant source of food on the continent so for example.

00:05:03: I feel such data actually shows that the import share of total food consumption is in tonnage terms is actually very low across Africa.

00:05:13: It is less than 5% for Malawi and Tanzania.

00:05:16: And it's about six percent in Uganda for Ethiopia Nigeria the share of imports is just over seven percent.

00:05:24: And if you look at the whole of sub-Saharan Africa the import share of food is 13% so quite different than what many people think.

00:05:31: You're also saying that the role of rural households is sometimes Miss analyzed in current scientific research.

00:05:42: When we talk about drills farming in Africa there is this image of families with a little plot of land cultivating a range of products in very small quantities.

00:05:52: To meet the direct needs of their families but.

00:05:55: According to your studies this view is outdated right yes indeed this is often the case so another misconception.

00:06:05: That we have found is this idea that you know rural households in Africa purchase little food.

00:06:11: And this image actually has its roots in the reality of you know maybe 20 to 30 years ago well when rural households were mostly subsistence farmers.

00:06:21: However things have changed and now across rural areas of Africa the majority of food is actually purchased.

00:06:28: In Nigeria for example it is well over 70 percent.

00:06:32: And then you have a third related myth which is this idea that small farmers are still traditional and there are poorly integrated into markets.

00:06:41: So this is the idea that

00:06:42: African Farmers overwhelmingly use only traditional Technologies they have very low yields and they sell little to the markets so this idea of subsistence.

00:06:52: But in reality rural urban food value chains have grown extremely rapidly over the last 20 to 25 years.

00:07:00: And many African farmers are purchasing inputs.

00:07:03: So for example in our work on the poultry and Maize value chain in Nigeria we found that even among Sports small poultry farmers.

00:07:11: We'll have maybe 50 to 100 Birds about 65 percent of them are using antibiotics.

00:07:16: And similarly only about 10% of them practice free range and about 90% are making some sort of investment in feet.

00:07:25: Majority of them are actually purchasing already made feed While others are purchasing the ingredients to make their own feet in addition

00:07:33: we have a nationally representative data from Nigeria which shows that about 60% of the rice farms and seventy percent of the maze farms in Nigeria's main rice and Maize producing regions actually are using like inorganic fertilizer.

00:07:48: So they're very engaged in the markets this rural farmers

00:07:51: you already talked about the producers like Farmers which you set up stream and to Consumers

00:07:58: which you named or which you categorize Downstream

00:08:02: but you also found out that we should look more at the middle man that hidden middle as you say the Midstream what is this hidden middle and why is it important for development

00:08:13: when we talk about the Midstream we are referring to those economic agents along food supply chains.

00:08:19: Who are involved in like the processing and distribution of food such as wholesalers food processing companies.

00:08:26: And then those involved in like third-party Logistics such as transportation and storage okay so now to your question.

00:08:33: Yes we have actually observed another myth which is this idea that food value chains have a missing Middle with either whew.

00:08:43: Or stagnant small and medium scale Enterprises in the Midstream of this food supply chains as well as input Supply chains and this term missing middle is frequently used

00:08:55: in policy debates right to imply that there are limited numbers of these actors or severe lack of capacity

00:09:03: among these smes which are involved in processing and distribution of food and inputs.

00:09:08: But in contrast we find that there's rapid and dynamic activity in the midstream.

00:09:14: So one of our recent studies for example looking at the Maze and feed and chicken value chains in Nigeria revealed

00:09:22: thousands of commercial poultry Farms it also revealed 1000 km North to South May supply chain because Mays has produced mostly in the North.

00:09:32: And then it goes all over Nigeria we found some 10 to 15,000 Urban maze Traders and thousands of rural maze aggregators all engaged in.

00:09:41: Procuring and trading of Maize and Maize based products all of these actors we found depend heavily

00:09:49: on thousands of third-party Logistics smes also in trucking and warehousing so there's this rapid Buzz of activities in the Midstream that is often ignored in policy debates even also in research sometimes.

00:10:02: Why is it actually that these misconceptions that you already.

00:10:10: Showed like the centrality of imports the role of rural households and also the role of the middleman.

00:10:17: Why do these misconceptions still persist well I mean I think they probably several reasons and I think one of the reasons is the fact that.

00:10:26: A lot of them are held on views that we have been accurate in the past you know 20 30 years ago you know.

00:10:34: Things were maybe a little different and so in the last 20 to 30 years a lot of things have changed and one needs to be kind of you know we need to keep going to the field collecting the data looking at the data and understanding how things are changing things are always changing.

00:10:49: And I think that

00:10:50: the idea of the subsistence farmer is is you know 20 30 maybe even 40 years ago this was the reality but things have changed and it's not the case if you look at urbanization rates right

00:11:01: in the 1970s Nigeria's urbanization rate was

00:11:05: was much less like 30 25 30 percent and now you're talking about a $50 over 50% now Urban so all of this is going to mean changes in the consumption patterns is and if you have changes in consumption patterns

00:11:18: then you're going to need to have a change in the supply chain configuration to be able to respond to these changing consumption patterns so I think that one of the

00:11:26: um reasons why we might have some of these misconceptions is because we haven't updated kind of you know updated our knowledge you know based in terms of.

00:11:36: Looking at the current data and we still have a lot of misconceptions because they're based on.

00:11:41: On the previous previous reality that hasn't been updated to sum it up a little bit.

00:11:48: What I get from from from what you're saying is that actually signs should look more at also informal patterns that have been established and support those informal patterns actually to improve

00:12:02: Lively hoods output and the farmers well-being is that right.

00:12:07: Exactly so basically if you think about some of the recommendations that are coming out of our work is that yes these small and medium scale Enterprises in food supply chains they are the lifeblood of food supply chains we all

00:12:19: depend on this

00:12:20: on this food supply chains and these small and medium scale Enterprises really should be considered as allies of the government and donors they shouldn't be considered as competitors or as missing they are there and they're very dynamic.

00:12:35: And when we are thinking even about provision of key rural services to support smallholder farmers.

00:12:41: We need to recognize that they exist and rather than trying to reinvent the wheel I think that governments and donors should really focus on trying to facilitate

00:12:50: the successful operation of this small and medium scale Enterprises through investments in like hard infrastructure such as roads and power but also through policies and regulations

00:13:03: that can reduce the transactions cost for the startup and operation of this small and medium scale Enterprises because the small and medium scale Enterprises can really support both the availability and affordability of

00:13:16: of nutritious food but they can also engage and make the food system transformation more inclusive inclusive of this smallholder farmers and also

00:13:26: both as sources of their products as well as you know employment opportunities for

00:13:32: with them and so I think that the governments and donors need to interact more with this informal sector and I do think that

00:13:38: there is some room for improvement of this small and medium scale Enterprises you rightly alluded to the fact that many of them are the many of this is informal that is the reality.

00:13:48: But these small and medium scale Enterprises are already very well connected

00:13:52: to small farmers and also to the ecosystem and so they could be used to make the food system transformation

00:14:01: happening in Africa much more inclusive when I say inclusive I mean including women Youth and other disadvantaged groups and I also think that you know particularly because of the focus of your podcast that they could also be.

00:14:13: Allies to help promote small who the adoption of agricultural practices that are environmentally friendly

00:14:19: so we don't let me ask you one thing you always talk about smes small and medium Enterprises and African context can you give us some images what are these Assamese actually who are they.

00:14:31: Okay so that's great and actually because you've asked for this I will actually even add another dimension which is micro so you have Micro small and medium scale Enterprises these are small Enterprises that could be a one person

00:14:44: you know activities somebody who's engaged in trading right so they may be trading the vegetables they could be

00:14:52: a small firm that has they could be at the wet Market somewhere in

00:14:55: exactly trading in food products and when we think about the vertical food supply chains they could be trading in eggs they could be trading in poultry products they could be engaged in

00:15:05: packaging of some of these food products or maybe they have vegetables that they package and put them in little bags to make them ready kind of ready for you to cook so you could imagine that they have detailed your peas they have chopped off your carrots and this might not be a very fancy

00:15:19: branded package but it could be unbranded you could also be people who are engaged in

00:15:26: the distribution of the lateral services so they are selling the packages that you will put the processed food into

00:15:32: write that material they could be those who are selling charcoal or you know or string or ropes and other things that you can use in the packaging of food and food products so there's so many small and medium scale Enterprises directly involved in

00:15:46: production and processing of food or in the provision of these lateral services that feed into the vertical food supply chain.

00:15:53: And would you say like until now do too many misconceptions about the role of middleman the role of the rural households as well

00:16:06: M donors and also governments actually focused too little on the informal part and focus too much on.

00:16:16: Bigger companies Imports things like that.

00:16:20: Yes indeed I mean I think that one of the challenges that we face is that in not enough attention has been paid to

00:16:29: how to ensure that this small and medium scale Enterprises are existing and actually their operations are even more effective and we saw that a lot in the covid-19 both in terms of the focus

00:16:43: all of the policies and even the kinds of policies that were used and the way they were implemented for example like the lockdown policies lockdown policies in some countries for example in Nigeria led to severe hindering of the operation of these.

00:16:57: These small and medium scale Enterprises and these wet markets so in some of the Nigerian States for example the wet markets were closed and were only opened

00:17:07: on your particular days of the week maybe two days a week and so what that meant was that on those days of the week you had a lot of people congested at these markets of course potentially allowing for further spread of

00:17:21: the covid-19 but then actually because of the severe restriction of the operation people couldn't have access to healthy and nutritious food

00:17:29: easily and then a lot of the employment opportunities a lot of the income earning capacity of these small and medium scale Enterprises was severely hampered such that

00:17:38: we found a lot of issues of food security arising from the Restriction that these operations directly on income earning as well as on the availability

00:17:47: of food so definitely I think that we need much more recognition

00:17:51: of the important role of the food supply chains and the small and medium scale Enterprises along this food supply chains when designing policies generally and specifically when or particularly when you have shocks.

00:18:03: Such as the covid-19 yeah you just mentioned the pandemic like many African countries close borders they restricted the movements of goods and people and even if we look at data hunger in Africa has increased due to the pandemic so what do you say

00:18:18: that this data actually supports your thesis and says that the reaction was a mistake this sharp reaction was a mistake.

00:18:28: So I think that definitely there should have been a little bit more more careful consideration of the roles of food supply chains and Logistics when designing these.

00:18:40: These policies but I will actually want to go back to myth one that I mentioned about the critical role of domestic Supply chains.

00:18:49: So one of the things that we argue is the fact that the myth about the centrality of imports to food security.

00:18:55: Actually led a lot of the debate during covid particularly earlier on.

00:19:00: Should be focused on the trade effects of covid and deflected attention from the domestic food supply chains.

00:19:06: So for example in Nigeria even in the early days of the covid-19 there are actually efforts made to keep the ports in Nigeria operational.

00:19:15: Support cargo handling and Port storage were Exempted from the lockdowns and allowed to remain open.

00:19:22: With efforts made to ensure or at least promote social distancing use of masks and sanitizers however there was limited attention paid to how to keep the domestic Supply chains operational and safe.

00:19:35: And they were actually several policies that severely restricted the operation of this domestic Supply chains and this included like restrictions on the movement of Labor.

00:19:44: And other important non-food items which were actually critical for food production and distribution so for many Nigerians States interstate passage travel was banned

00:19:54: which significantly affected the movement of farm labor and non-farm informal sector workers and thus hurt incomes and food security directly but then also had a significant and negative effect on food production.

00:20:06: Right so this is a another dimension which is that even the way the policies were designed the focus of the policies and their implementation led to a lot of.

00:20:16: Hindering hindrances or disruptions to the domestic supply chain which I think had a severe effect on food security because of its impact on income earning and availability of food.

00:20:31: To sum it up once again you you're saying development policy and also local governments have long underestimated that local food production

00:20:39: can be a huge driver for growth and job creation but what we haven't talked about is the quality of those jobs and food supply chains is there something that you can say from your research already about the the quality of the jobs.

00:20:55: Um yes so actually I think that there's definitely room for for improving on

00:21:04: the quality of the jobs or the ability for these jobs to translate into non-poor livelihood status for a lot of the households engaged in in some of these

00:21:16: activities but I would say that already we are seeing that the rapid expansion of.

00:21:24: The food supply chains is creating both on farm and offer more opportunities for smallholder farmers and like I mentioned earlier.

00:21:33: The transformation of Food Systems changing consumption patterns is creating opportunities for the supply chain to respond in providing.

00:21:43: These this food and like you mentioned earlier not only are we seeing increased consumption of processed foods but we're also seeing

00:21:51: diversify diets increase consumption of animal protein so poultry value chain fish value chains vegetables and dairy so all of these are increased opportunities and so I think that where we increase the.

00:22:05: Um the productivity of those who are engaged in these value chains where we increase their scale of operation I think that there's a lot of opportunity for increasing the learning

00:22:16: from those value chains and the ability for them to also employ more people and employed at better a better job so I think that ensuring that these

00:22:25: small and medium scale Enterprises are supported to be much more effective I think is important and like I mentioned.

00:22:32: When we did our scoping review we did find that there are

00:22:37: significant there is significant opportunity or significant room for improving the efficiency of the small and medium scale Enterprises and so even if you want to improve the quality of the jobs for those who they hire as well as the quality of the

00:22:51: the the impact that they have on the smallholder farmers I think we need to also increase their their efficiency of their operation there is a big discussion going on in Europe about sustainability.

00:23:04: We talk now about the social dimensions of food supply chains already and we also touch the ecological Dimensions when you set like fertilizers or antibiotics what do you think should African Farmers care more about the ecological footprint of their food

00:23:22: or is this rather a first-world debate I'm so I think that you know issues about environmentally safe practices and

00:23:31: the impacts of Agriculture on.

00:23:34: On the environment of solar has implications for climate change our Global issues and I do think that actually if you look at.

00:23:44: You know the experience of many.

00:23:46: Small holders in developing countries in or across sub-Saharan Africa you will see that there are actually even more adversely affected by some of the

00:23:55: impacts of climate change right and you know we do see already that many of these smaller farmers are adapting.

00:24:02: In the best way that they can and so I think that there's definitely a role

00:24:07: for efforts that can support their adaptation processes to be a bit more transformative so I think that there is definitely room

00:24:14: for conversations about how the practices that they engage in can be more environmentally friendly or climate-smart both as a mechanism for them to be more resilient.

00:24:24: As well as to contribute to any potential ways of reducing the impacts of their activities on the environment and that's why I mentioned also that I think that these small and medium scale Enterprises in the midstream.

00:24:36: Can be important allies of the donors and also of the government's as they try to promote these sorts of considerations and practices because these platforms are already engaging with.

00:24:49: The farmers they already training them on a lot of the practices that they're engaging in to increase the productivity of these Farmers as well as the quality of what they're producing for these economic agents in the Midstream of the downstream and so I think that they could be important allies.

00:25:04: Also for providing information in terms of training as well as maybe incentives for the adoption of some of these environmentally beneficial practices.

00:25:13: Thank you so much for your insights on food supply chains in Africa

00:25:17: that was our episode of today with Doctor Savita only paid a Liverpool Tassie a development expert and associate professor at Michigan State University thank you for joining us.

00:25:29: Thank you for having me Nicholas.

00:25:31: This podcast is brought to you by the research Network sustainable Global Supply chains which brings together some 70 leading researchers from around the globe

00:25:44: in the next episode we will have a look in the mining sector and ask if new technology.

00:25:50: Is a chance to clean up the sector's bad environmental and social balance.

00:25:56: I'm Nicholas Martin thank you for joining us stay tuned and stay safe.

00:26:01: Music.