We combine the results of a laboratory experiment and survey of agricultural households to estimate the welfare impacts of a market-based intervention with links to value-chain. We investigate whether increased participation by women in such value-chains improves their relative bargaining power and therefore their ability to contribute to household welfare.

It is often claimed that cotton production is of significant economic and social importance in the French-speaking African countries (FSACs) but indicators of socio-economic impact are often not precisely measured, not based on updated data, and equity concerns are usually not addressed. Studies of the cotton value chains in Africa seldom account for the impacts of governance on value creation and income distribution. This paper showcases the relationship between governance and equity within the cotton sector in Cameroon in the 2017–18 season, through the concept of relational governance.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused nontrivial disruptions to global value chains and affected the lives of many people, particularly the poor across the world. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the early part of 2020 in Africa, happened during a time that African countries had just signed one of the world’s largest trade agreements and therefore began introducing continental-level structures to strengthen free trade among member states. This chapter examines the potential effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the agenda for free trade in Africa, both in the short and in the long-term.

This article analyzes how value chains play a role in the political economy of agricultural and food policy by (1) discussing historical insights; (2) reviewing an emerging literature on political economy of trade policy and value chains and drawing implications for agricultural and food policy; (3) discussing market power issues with increasing concentration in agri-food value chains and its implications for government regulations; and (4) presenting a political economy case study of recent regulations that have explicitly targeted value chain structures in the agri-food sector: the EU reg

This article analyzes how urban proximity introduces spatial heterogeneity in farm productivity within the high-value dairy sector in one of the poorest countries in Africa, Ethiopia. We look at how urban proximity—measured as travel time—affects the decisions and productivity of milk farmers located in rural production zones serving fresh milk to the capital Addis Ababa. Using an instrumental variable approach, we find that with each additional hour of travel time, farmers’ milk productivity per cow is reduced, on average, by almost 1 L per day or by 26%.

In March 2020, India declared a nationwide lockdown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Such restrictions on mobility interrupted the normal functioning of agricultural value chains. For a sample of 1767 tomato and wheat producers in the state of Haryana, we study to what extent the lockdown limited access to inputs, labor, machinery, and markets to produce, harvest, and sell their crops. We quantify crop income reductions during the first months of the lockdown and analyze to what extent these are associated with borrowing and food insecurity.

The food system, and those who depend on it, have been strongly but unevenly affected by COVID-19. Overall, the impacts on food systems, poverty, and nutrition have been caused by a combination of a generalized economic recession and disruptions in agri-food supply chains. This paper provides an overview of the contributions to this Special Issue of Agricultural Economics.

It is widely feared that the shock of the COVID‐19 pandemic will lead to a significant worsening of the food security situation in low and middle‐income countries. One reason for this is the disruption of food marketing systems and subsequent changes in farm and consumer prices. Based on primary data in Ethiopia collected just before the start and a few months into the pandemic, we assess changes in farm and consumer prices of four major vegetables and the contribution of different segments of the rural‐urban value chain in urban retail price formation.

Photo credit: World Bank

In this paper we descriptively investigate the Covid‐19 pandemic's early impact on the fruit and vegetable supply chain in Senegal, using trade statistics and survey data collected through online questionnaires and telephone interviews with smallholder farmers, agro‐industrial companies, agricultural workers, traders, importers, and consumers.

In this paper, we try to understand what the main causes of food losses (FLs) are. Our results show that producers' education and experience and the number of years in which a producer has been involved in the production of a specific crop are significantly correlated with reduction in FL. Unfavorable climatic conditions, pests, and diseases, as well as limited knowledge and access to equipment, credit, and markets, are also challenges to increasing production of higher quality and therefore reasons for FL.

International humanitarian organizations have expressed substantial concern about the potential for increases in food insecurity resulting from the COVID‐19 pandemic. We use a unique panel survey of a representative sample households in Addis Ababa to study both food security and food consumption during the pandemic. In contrast to some other countries in the region, Ethiopia never went into a full lockdown severely restricting movement.

This study examines the state of the art of the literature in the domain of food loss and waste (FLW) in food supply chains (FSC). The authors used a systematic literature review (SLR) approach to examine and synthesise the findings of the existing literature to identify the key research themes, research gaps and avenues of future research on FLW in FSC. To this end, this SLR considered 152 articles relevant for the review. The authors uncovered the extant literature in the domain by presenting the research profile of the selected studies, along with thematic analysis.

Food supply chains are extremely important for food access and livelihoods across Africa, but their role is often overlooked and underappreciated. Under normal conditions, the gap between myth and reality can result in the design of policies and programs with limited or negative impacts on food security and welfare. The shock of COVID‐19 has heightened this disconnect, with potentially dire consequences for food security.

Propelled by urbanization, rising incomes, and changing diets, food markets have been expanding in Africa and South Asia, creating the vast potential for job and income opportunities along food supply chains and, hence, for poverty reduction. The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) that spread to a pandemic in early 2020 provokes enormous setbacks to this expansion. This, however, should provide lessons regarding the importance of resilient and inclusive food systems.

This study examined consumers’ purchasing habits and demand in peri-urban Mexico City for three types of tortillas: i) machine-made white, ii) handmade white, and iii) handmade blue. As part of a sensory analysis, the participants rated the blue maize tortillas significantly higher across all categories (overall score, flavour, smell, texture in mouth, texture in hand, size, thickness, and colour). To explore how demand varies according to the intended use, we conducted a choice experiment using three scenarios: in-home daily use, in-home special event, and out-of-home consumption.

Rice plays a strategic role in food security in West Africa. However, the region increasingly relies on rice imports due to a growing and structural deficit, and domestic value chains face constraints in technology, finance and coordination. As a result, West Africa is very vulnerable to international and local trade disruptions, such as the ones currently inflicted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

photo credit: World Bank

As the COVID-19 pandemic progresses, trade-offs have emerged between the need to contain the virus and to avoid disastrous economic and food security crises that hurt the world's poor and hungry most. Although no major food shortages have emerged as yet, agricultural and food markets are facing disruptions because of labor shortages created by restrictions on movements of people and shifts in food demand resulting from closures of restaurants and schools as well as from income losses.

Women's participation and empowerment in value chains are goals of many development organizations, but there has been limited systematic, rigorous research to track these goals between and within value chains (VCs). We adapt the survey-based project-level Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI) to measure women's and men's empowerment in the abaca, coconut, seaweed, and swine VCs in the Philippines and to investigate the correlates of empowerment.

The global value chain framework has gained increasing prominence as a policy tool for resource-based industrialization. Focusing on synergies between the commodity-producing and related manufacturing and service sectors, value chain interventions assume that buyer-supplier linkages facilitate the upgrading of local industries. This study investigates these synergistic assumptions in the context of the Ivorian cashew industry.

Developing regions' food system has transformed rapidly in the past several decades. The food system is the dendritic cluster of R&D value chains, and the value chains linking input suppliers to farmers, and farmers upstream to wholesalers and processors midstream, to retailers then consumers downstream. We analyze the transformation in terms of these value chains' structure and conduct, and the effects of changes in those on its performance in terms of impacts on consumers and farmers, as well as the efficiency of and waste in the overall chain.

The decade to 2015 saw rapid growth in trade between Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries. Much of this growth reflected South African exports to its neighbours of diversified manufactured goods to meet growing urban consumption and to supply inputs to mining and infrastructure. While most SADC countries, aside from South Africa, grew quite rapidly over this period, their exports remained oriented to a narrow range of minerals and agricultural commodities destined to go outside the region.

We extend the nominal rate of protection (NRP) methodology to a value chain framework. We develop our methodology for three types of value chains: a new value chain created by policy, a value chain in which a by‐product is created in the processing of a commodity, and a value chain in which processing of a commodity generates new product(s). We consider two cases of value chains: when the commodity is tradable and when it is non‐tradable.

The Indian government has made significant efforts to promote dairy cooperatives to link the milk producers with consumers. Despite this, milk marketing is still dominated by traditional outlets. This paper examines the impact of modern dairy value chains on food security indicators such as net returns from dairying and consumption expenditures.

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to identify sources and quantifying distortions to agricultural incentives to produce along the small ruminant value chains in Ethiopia.

Design/methodology/approach

National and district level average nominal rate of protection (NRPs) were computed for a five-year period (2010–2015). The authors developed four scenarios based on combinations of the different data generation processes employed in relation to each of the key variables.

Evidence shows the importance of food systems for sustainable development: they are at the nexus that links food security, nutrition, and human health, the viability of ecosystems, climate change, and social justice. However, agricultural policies tend to focus on food supply, and sometimes, on mechanisms to address negative externalities. We propose an alternative. Our starting point is that agriculture and food systems’ policies should be aligned to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Smallholder producers in sub-Saharan Africa are often unable integrate into markets and access high-value opportunities by effectively participating in global chains for high-value fresh produce. Using data from a survey of large avocado farmers in Kenya, this study examines the determinants and impacts of smallholder-producer participation in avocado export markets on labor inputs, farm yields, sales prices, and incomes, using a switching regression framework to control for selection effects.

This paper examines the services sector in Thailand with a focus on regional and global value chains, highlighting the case of the logistics sector. Overall, the results indicate that in Thailand, services exhibit relatively low labour productivity as compared to other sectors. The logistics sector, however, is well integrated into global value chains with links to prominent multinational firms. The findings also suggest that many opportunities lie ahead for Thai firms to move up regional and global value chains.

This paper examines Japan's participation in global value chains (GVCs). To this end, we use plant-level data for Japan to split output in each industry in Japan's manufacturing sector into output for export or domestic sale and create an extended multi-country input-output table (MIOT). We then compute trade in value added (TiVA) indicators to examine the participation of Japanese manufacturing plants in GVCs. Our estimates suggest that Japan's forward participation in GVCs is lower than suggested by estimates computed from a traditional MIOT.

It is now commonly accepted that poverty alleviation and the development of agricultural value chains in low income countries require farmers to innovate. However numerous constraints to innovation adoption have been identified. In the literature, the market structures on which producers sell their output have received remarkably little attention. In this article, I argue that these can impact a producer's choices with respect to the level of effort invested in changing agricultural practices.

This paper aims to analyse the current position and potential for upgrading of the Philippines in the global value chain of information technology offshoring services. With its rapid growth in the last decade, the Philippines is characterized as strong in voice and is expanding in the non-voice and more complex services sectors.

The seminal work by Antras and Chor in 2013 predicted that, under incomplete-contracting environments, the optimal allocation of residual claim for firms participating in global production depends on the relative position at which the supplier enters the sequential production and on the demand elasticity faced by the final-good producer. Using data of Japanese value-added exports, this study empirically verifies this theoretical prediction through supportive evidence.

Regional value chains (RVCs) are considered as an important step towards greater integration into global value chains (GVCs), but African countries trade very little value added with each other. Based on the UNCTAD-Eora GVC database, this paper estimates a panel model from 2006 to 2012 for 37 African countries and sheds light on the role of trade costs in building RVCs in Africa. First evidence is provided for a significantly negative effect on foreign value added of charged tariffs on capital goods and higher time to trade.

Commercial layer and indigenous chicken farming in Nairobi and associated activities in the egg value chains are a source of livelihood for urban families. A value chain mapping framework was used to describe types of inputs and outputs from chicken farms, challenges faced by producers and their disease control strategies. Commercial layer farms were defined as farms keeping exotic breeds of chicken, whereas indigenous chicken farms kept different cross breeds of indigenous chicken.